Keira Knightley is opening up about the difficult years that came after sudden fame Pirates of the CaribbeanSaying that the constant attention from the paparazzi pushed her to the edge.
In a recent interview with Times of LondonThe British star admitted, saying: “I went crazy,” as the paparazzi began following her everywhere.
“It was mostly ‘wh-re’.” [they’d shout]She said.
“Sometimes. Especially if I was with someone – my friend, my brother, my parents. They would try to get a reaction out of them – which would provoke people into punching them, so they could file a lawsuit.”
Knightley recalled how paparazzi culture became more dangerous at that time.
“That’s when the accidents started, where they would force people off the roads, and then they would get bigger money for pictures of a crashed actress or whatever,” she said.
“Then Britney shaved her head and it was like ‘cool – we can get them to do something crazy’.”
The pressure prompted Knightley to take extreme measures to protect herself. She said she went into survival mode and started wearing the same outfit every day to make herself less attractive to the tabloids.
“Three pairs of the same jeans, a striped shirt, and shoes. I gave up all my other clothes,” she explained.
I’ve also learned to stop giving the photographers the reaction they want.
“And then, if I was followed, I stopped walking,” she said.
“I would literally stand there. The stock was still. One day, I stood there for five hours. ‘If you’re still there, I won’t go. I won’t move.'” Eventually, the photographers lost interest.
“It wasn’t a valuable shot for them if I was always wearing the same clothes and standing still,” she added. “There are only so many times you can write, ‘Oh, she’s wearing the same clothes,’ with a picture of me standing still. It’s boring.”
The constant harassment eventually led her to walk away from acting altogether. Knightley said her family supported her decision to withdraw.
“My family supported me. They said: ‘Just walk.’
She moved to London for a while and then traveled across Europe by train, blending in with the crowd.
“I was very good,” she said. “Museums, trains…no one expects to see you there. You were very shabby, which they didn’t expect either. You don’t make eye contact, you just bow a little. You kind of slipped away.”
Knightley was only 18 years old when he was at Disney Pirates of the Caribbean The franchise made her an international star.
Looking back, she admits that fame came at a heavy cost. She said The times Last year, she was “stalked by men” and made to feel “worthy” because she was popular.
“It was a brutal time to be a young woman in the public eye,” she said.
Now, years later, Knightley continues to act on her own terms and can currently be seen in the Netflix original film Woman in cabin 10which is streaming now.