Keira Knightley was told early in her career that she “wanted to be stalked”.

Keira Knightley still suffers from the way she was treated when she became famous in the early 2000s.

After a supporting role in the star Wars Prequel The Phantom MenaceKnightley achieved a breakthrough in her career at the age of 18 when she appeared in a number of hits, including: Bend it like Beckham, love actually, And pirates of the Caribbean. But that success came at a “high price,” she says, as she was constantly followed by paparazzi and scrutinized by the press.

“My jaw dropped at the time,” the now 39-year-old actress told the Los Angeles Times in a new interview. “I didn’t think it would be OK at the time. I knew it was absolutely shocking. There was a lot of gaslighting from a lot of men who were told ‘this is what you wanted.’ It was a rape speech. “This is what you deserve.”

Speaking about her struggles during her early years in the industry, she added: “There was a very violent, misogynistic atmosphere. They specifically meant that I wanted to be stalked by men. Whether it was stalking because someone was mentally ill, or because other people were mentally ill, making money from it – it felt the same to me. It was a brutal time to be in the public eye as a young woman.

Knightley explained that the scrutiny was particularly intense because of her roles on the series pirates of the Caribbean Sequels and pride and Prejudicethe Jane Austen adaptation, which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

“It’s very brutal when you’re in your teens, in your early 20s, your privacy is taken away and then you’re subjected to that control while you’re still growing,” she said. “However, without this time I would not have the financial stability or the career that I have now. I had a five-year gap between the ages of 17 and 21, and I’ll never have that.” Another kind of success. Was that associated with costs? large cost.”

Knightley has long been outspoken about the impact sudden fame has had on her wellbeing, admitting she suffered a “mental breakdown” in 2007 at the age of 22. That same year, the actress won a libel case against the actress Daily Mail after the outlet falsely claimed she had an eating disorder.

Now Knightley finds that social media has exacerbated the suffering of young people by putting fame “in a very different context when you look at the harm that has been done to young women and teenage girls.”

“At the end of the day, that’s what fame is: being publicly shamed,” she said. “A lot of teenage girls don’t survive that.”

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For these reasons, Knightley said she doesn’t want her own children – the two daughters she shares with musician James Righton – to pursue careers in the public eye, at least not until they “grow up.”

“Could I in good conscience say to my child, ‘This is what you should do?’ No,” she said. “But am I grateful for this? Yes. But that’s life, isn’t it?”

She added that fortunately her children have not expressed interest in acting yet. Her current career aspirations include owning a candy store and being a bear. “I don’t think that’s going to work,” she joked about the latter.