Knightley Awarded [Pound]3,000 Damages Over Anorexia Claim ; HOME

May 25, 02:02 AM

Current Headlines: By Thair Shaikh

The actress Keira Knight-ley accepted [pound]3,000 libel damages yesterday over a newspaper article suggesting she was losing too much weight and could be anorexic. The 22-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean star believes the Daily Mail article in January was "deeply offensive and embarrassing" and had suggested she had "dishonestly sought to mislead the public" over whether she had a eating disorder.

Ms Knightley, who was filming in Wales yesterday and did not attend the High Court in London, has said she will match the award and donate it to the eating disorder and mental illness charity, Beat.

In the article, Rosalind Ponomarenko-Jones, who lost her daughter Sophie Mazurek to anorexia, discussed the impact of well known figures such as Ms Knightley on vulnerable young women.

A photograph of Ms Mazurek, who was 19 when she died in December, was printed next to one of Ms Knightley in a bikini. The article described the actress as "skinny" and said that "for ordinary young girls, attempting to emulate this image is often dangerous".

Ms Knightley's solicitor, Simon Smith, said in court the picture of his client had been taken without her consent while she was on a beach attached to a hotel in Hawaii during a break from filming. Mr Smith said the article could be interpreted to have asserted that Ms Knightley bore personal responsibility for causing the tragic death of Ms Mazurek.

He added that three days before the libellous article was published, the newspaper had carried a story with the headline "It's itsy bitsy teeny weeny Keira Knight-ley", in which it referred to her emphatic denial that she suffered from anorexia.

By innuendo, he added, the later article suggested she had dishonestly set out to mislead the public about her eating disorder and by claiming falsely that she did not suffer from anorexia.

He said it was important to note that, from the outset, Ms Knightley had, through her lawyers, offered her sincere sympathies to Ms Mazurek's mother and family for what was obviously a tragic and distressing loss for them.

Mr Smith said Ms Knight-ley accepted she had from time to time undertaken cardio-vascular and weight training for roles in action films and that involved muscle-toning which did alter physical appearance. But her weight had never fluctuated more than a few pounds throughout her adult life.

Kate Wilson, counsel for Associated Newspapers, which has also agreed to reimburse Ms Knightley's costs, offered its apologies.

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