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

• Knightley rose to fame after starring in 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean and Love Actually.

• Now she’s speaking out about how toxic Hollywood was for women in the early 2000s.

Keira Knightley was told she “wanted to be stalked” early in her career. The actor spoke about the “violent, misogynistic atmosphere” of 2000s Hollywood in an interview on Thursday.

The British actor rose to fame after landing roles in Love Actually and Pirates of the Caribbean in 2003 at the age of 17. As a result, Knightley spent her late teens and early twenties under the microscope of the press.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times ahead of her new Netflix series Black Doves, Knightley recalled being told during her rise to fame that she “wanted to be stalked.”

In response to a question from the LA Times reporter about Hollywood culture at the time, Knightley replied: “I didn’t think it was right at the time. I knew it was absolutely shocking. There was a lot of gaslighting,” being told by a lot of men that you wanted that. It was a rape speech. “This is what you deserve.”

Knightley continued to paint a picture of the negative atmosphere in early 2000s Hollywood that women had to deal with.

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 people were 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.

The star is also aware that her early work gave her “financial stability” despite the harassment and pressure she faced.

“It’s very brutal when you are deprived of your privacy in your teens, in your early 20s, and then subjected to such scrutiny when you’re still developing. However, I would neither have the financial stability nor the career that would be necessary for that. “I’m foregoing this time now,” she said.

Keira Knightley was 17 when she began filming the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise in 2003. She played Elizabeth Swann, the point of a love triangle, opposite then-26-year-old Orlando Bloom and 22-year-old Johnny Depp Sr.

She said of the five-year period of success in her early career: “It completely prepared me for life. Was there a cost involved? Yes, that was it. It came at a high cost.”

What got the actress through her turbulent era of fame was having people around her who had no connection to Hollywood.

She added: “I had a life separate from the industry and I kept that.”

This isn’t the first time Knightley has spoken openly about the toxicity she endured at a young age.

In November, she recalled that her role in “Pirates of the Caribbean” was the main reason she was “publicly canceled.”

In 2018, Knightley told The Hollywood Reporter that paparazzi were constantly following her because they wanted to tear her down.

“It cost a lot of money to take pictures of women falling apart because you (consumers) wanted them to be sexy but you wanted to punish them for that sexuality,” she said.

Read the original article on Business Insider