Keira Knightley Recalls Being “Stalked by Men” After ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ Success

Keira Knightley is getting candid about the negative side of fame, especially in her early 20s when she recalled being “stalked by men.”

The Oscar-nominated actress looked back at her early acting career days during a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, including the scrutiny and body-shaming she faced from being in the public eye at such a young age.

“It’s very brutal to have your privacy taken away in your teenage years, early 20s, and to be put under that scrutiny at a point when you are still growing,” Knightley said. “Having said that, I wouldn’t have the financial stability or the career that I do now without that period. I had a five-year period between the age of 17 and 21-ish, and I’m never going to have that kind of success again. It totally set me up for life. Did it come at a cost? Yes, it did. It came at a big cost.”

The actress rose to fame in 2003 at just 18 years old for her roles in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Love Actually. However, it was her performance as Elizabeth Swann in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise that attracted the most unwanted and inappropriate behavior from others.

Knightley said that her “jaw dropped at the time” over how people treated her in public spaces. “I didn’t think it was OK at the time,” she explained. “I was very clear on it being absolutely shocking. There was an amount of gaslighting to be told by a load of men that ‘you wanted this.’ It was rape speak. You know, ‘This is what you deserve.’ It was a very violent, misogynistic atmosphere.”

The Pride & Prejudice actress continued: “They very specifically meant I wanted to be stalked by men. Whether that was stalking because somebody was mentally ill, or because people were earning money from it — it felt the same to me. It was a brutal time to be a young woman in the public eye.”

Now, more than two decades later, she feels social media has made it even worse for young girls today. “Social media has put that in a whole other context, when you look at the damage that’s been done to young women, to teenage girls,” Knightley added. “Ultimately, that’s what fame is — it’s being publicly shamed. A lot of teenage girls don’t survive that.”

Last month, the Atonement star reflected on her time making the Pirates films, where she starred opposite Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom. While she credits the franchise for helping establish her name in Hollywood, she also cites the films’ popularity as “the reason that I was taken down publicly.”

“It’s a funny thing when you have something that was making and breaking you at the same time,” Knightley said of the franchise at the time. “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.”