Keira Knightley says she was ‘stalked by men’ after Pirates of the Caribbean and told ‘you wanted this’ | Keira Knightley

Keira Knightley has opened up about the intimidation and pressure she experienced early in her career when she was “pursued by men” who blamed her for aggressive interest.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Knightley said that even as a young woman, “I was very clear that it was absolutely shocking. There was an amount of gaslighting to be told by a bunch of men that “you wanted this”. It was a rape speech. You know, “This is what you deserve.” It was a very violent, misogynistic atmosphere.

Knightley rose to fame aged 17 with her role in Bend It Like Beckham, before finding international fame with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and Love Actually.

“It’s very brutal to have your privacy taken away in your teenage years, early 20s, and to be subject to this surveillance at a time when you’re still growing up,” Knightley said.

“Having said that, I wouldn’t have the financial stability or the career I do now without that period. I had a five year period between the ages of 17 and 21 and I will never have that success again. It completely set me up for life. Was there a price? Yes, it did. It came at a great price.”

The actor said her “jaw dropped at the time” about how she was treated in public, with the clear implication that “they very specifically meant that I wanted to be chased by men. Whether it was persecution because someone was mentally ill or because people were making money off of it – I felt the same way about me. It was a brutal time to be a young woman in the public eye.

Knightley, who has two daughters, said she thinks the internet has exacerbated the problem. “Social media has put this in a whole other context when you look at the damage done to young women, to teenage girls,” she said. “After all, that’s what fame is – it’s being publicly shamed. Many teenage girls do not experience this.

In an interview with the Times of London last month, Knightley said the popularity of the pirate movies put her in a difficult position: financially stable but emotionally under siege.

“It’s funny when you have something that makes you and breaks you at the same time,” Knightley said. “They looked at me like shit because of them, and yet because they did so well, I was given the opportunity to make the movies that I ended up getting Oscar nominations for.

“They were the most successful films I would ever be in, and they were the reason I was publicly shot down. So they are a very messed up place in my head.

Six years ago, Knightley told the Hollywood Reporter that such exposure caused her to have a breakdown at age 22. She didn’t leave the house for three months and needed hypnotherapy to feel fit to walk the Baftas red carpet for Atonement in 2008.

In 2018 Knightley wrote an essay called “The Weaker Sex” which addressed how overt and internalized misogyny silences women. Finished with a goal against fellow men:

“Tell me what it’s like to be a woman. Be kind, be supportive, be handsome but not too handsome, be skinny but not too skinny, be sexy but not too sexy, be successful but not too successful… But I don’t want to flirt and give them mother, to flirt and be a mother, flirt and mother. I don’t want to flirt with you because I don’t want to fuck you and I don’t want to be your mother because I’m not your mother… I just want to work my friend. is it ok Speak and be heard, be talked to and listen. Male ego. Stop getting in the way.”

Speaking to the Guardian in 2018, Knightley said she wrote the piece to try to “harness this moment in time and use our voices to keep the conversation going” and hoped the female experience would be more explored – and therefore more understood – in the future.

“Before motherhood,” she said, “you’re sexy, but if we’re talking about the whole vagina-splitting thing, then it’s terrifying; there’s no sex there so what we do is switch to virgin mother retooling, that’s nice and safe. The problem with these two images is that I think very few women actually identify with them. Women are meant to play flirt or mother to make their voices heard. i can’t This makes me feel bad.