Kiera Knightley has recounted the paparazzi abuse she received outside her house at the height of her fame in a new interview.
Speaking to The Times, Knightley said she went “mad” during the time and decided to escape Hollywood entirely, choosing instead to travel unidentified around Europe.
“I went mad. I just managed to hide it,” she told The Times, explaining that she would do things like purchase an entire collection of identical outfits, ensuring all pictures of her appeared the same to put off photographers.
She explained that this didn’t work and they’d instead go to extreme lengths to get photographs of her, such as renting out apartments opposite where she lived and using telephoto lenses to see into her home.
She also revealed to The Times that groups of photographers would stand outside her house shouting insults at her in a bid to get a response.
“It was mostly ‘whore’ [they’d shout],” she explained. “‘Slut’ sometimes. Particularly if I was with someone — a boyfriend, my brother or my dad. They were trying to get a reaction out of them — provoking people into punching them, so they could sue.
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“And that was the time the crashes started happening — they were forcing people off the roads, then getting even bigger money for pictures of a crashed actress or whatever. And then Britney shaved her head so it was like, ‘Great — we can push them into doing something fucking crazy.’”
She went on to describe how decided to quit acting at the time and travel Europe instead – in a kind of disguise. “One day, I was like, ‘I’m out.’ And my family backed me. They said, ‘Just fucking walk,’” she explained.
“I was very good,” she said of vanishing on her travels. “Museums, trains… no one expects to see you there. I was very scruffy, which they also wouldn’t have expected. You just don’t make eye contact, go a bit hunched. I kind of slithered.”
In another interview last year, Knightley said she was “taken down publicly” after her time in the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise. The actress, who appeared in the franchise from 2003-2007 playing Elizabeth Swann, described the time as “a very confused place in her head”.
“It’s a funny thing when you have something that was making and breaking you at the same time,” Knightley began.
“I was seen as shit because of them, and yet because they did so well I was given the opportunity to do the films that I ended up getting Oscar nominations for. They were the most successful films I’ll ever be a part of, and they were the reason that I was taken down publicly. So they’re a very confused place in my head.”
She went on to say she wouldn’t return to a franchise again. She continued: “The hours are insane. It’s years of your life, you have no control over where you’re filming, how long you’re filming, what you’re filming.”
Knightley is currently starring in the Netflix thriller The Woman in Cabin 10. Directed by Simon Stone (The Daughter), the film follows a journalist who witnesses a passenger being thrown overboard on a yacht late at night, only to be told it never happened. As she continues to look for answers, her own life is put at risk.
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