Keira Knightley Sues British Tab

By: Shannon Gossage

Knightley has sued the Daily Mail for using a picture of her in a bikini alongside an article about a teenage girl who died of anorexia. The headline read "If Pictures Like This One of Keira Carried a Health Warning, My Darling Daughter Might Have Lived." Schillings, the law firm representing Knightley, said that the article suggested that the actress was "indirectly responsible" for the girl’s death by somehow influencing her with her appearance.

Last summer Knightley denied that she had an eating disorder saying, "I don’t have it. I’m very sure I don’t have it." She went on to say, "I’ve got a lot of experience with anorexia. It was in my family hugely. My grandmother and my great grandmother suffered from it. And I’ve got a lot of friends at school who suffered from it. So I don’t think it’s anything to be taken lightly." Knightley’s attorney Simon Smith said that they "will show that she does not have anorexia; and further will challenge the suggestion that she is responsible and to blame for the tragic death of the teenage girl by setting a bad example."

If the case is not settled out of court it is set to be heard in a London court later this year or in early 2008. Knightley is not the only actress that has sued over statements about her weight. Kate Hudson sued the British edition of the National Enquirer in July over an article that ran in October 2005 claiming that she looked "like skin and bones" and that she was "way too thin" despite that fact that she denied ever having an eating disorder. Hudson hired the same firm that Knightley is using and won a public apology from the U.S.-based publisher of the Enquirer as well as an undisclosed amount in libel damages.