Keira Knightley has enjoyed a successful career so far, managing to stay under the radar and keeping her personal life private. But the Oscar nominee shared one of the dark sides of fame at a TimesTalk and TIFF Q&A on Wednesday night.
Knightley was joined by her Imitation Game co-star, Benedict Cumberbatch, for the session, where she revealed the crude things paparazzi used to yell at her when she was just 18 and fresh off of the first Pirates of the Caribbean film.
“Having 20 to 30 men who you don't know on a 24-hour surveillance outside your house calling you a 'whore' every time you leave the door to try to get a reaction from you is quite a difficult thing to deal with," she explained.
Cumberbatch agreed with her that it is “disgusting behavior,” E! Online reports.
“It was a time when there was a lot of money for pictures of women crying or of women in some state of undress," she went on to say, explaining they would try to stick cameras up her skirt to get a shot.
She said they would even mess with whoever she was dating by “spitting at you or all the time trying to get a reaction from the guy you were with because it would make the price of that photograph quadruple."
When the paparazzi realized she wasn’t into the party scene or doing anything inappropriate to get a shot of, they stopped. She was happy to say things are “completely different” for her now.
Knightley is now married to James Righton and expecting her first child.
ABC News reports she joked with Ellen DeGeneres the worst part about being pregnant right now is she can’t celebrate her Oscar nomination.
“I can't drink at the Oscars!" she exclaimed, joking her husband is doing enough drinking for both of them.
image via INFphoto.com