Keira Knightley: ‘I Went Mad. I Just Managed to Hide It’
October 30, 2025 at 08:45PMWho is Keira Knightley? Caitlin Moran finds someone very different from the elegant, classy Knightley we think we know. Knightley survived the emotional turmoil of being a young, famous woman in the early 2000s—barely—disappeared for a while, and then came back stronger. It’s a fun, vivid profile that both introduces you to an older Knightley and leaves you shuddering at what was once considered acceptable as she grew up famous.
This is what I want to talk about with Knightley today. I think it’s only in the past few years that, with hindsight, we’ve started to realise just what an emotional killing field it was for young, famous women between the end of the Nineties and the early 2010s. This was the era of upskirting female celebrities; of Amy Winehouse being chased by paparazzi. It’s Britney Spears being wheeled out of her house on a trolley, and Chris Evans on TFI Friday asking Victoria Beckham (then Adams), “Is your weight back to normal?” two months after she’d given birth — then got her to weigh herself, live on television.
There was a raw, deeply misogynistic brutality to the way young, famous women were treated in the media. The “Circle of Shame”; “Hot or Not?”; Jade Goody being called a “pig” in one tabloid. It was visceral. Even in the “grown-up” media, the tone used to talk about women was … creepy.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/10/30/keira-knightley-profile/
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