KEY POINTS:
The actress Keira Knightley accepted £3000 ($8211) libel damages yesterday over a newspaper story that suggested 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 has a eating disorder.
Knightley, who was filming in Wales yesterday and did not attend the High Court at 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 Keira Knightley on vulnerable young women.
A photograph of Mazurek, who was 19 when she died in December, was printed next to one of 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".
Knightley's solicitor, Simon Smith, said in court that the picture of his client had been taken without her consent during a break from filming in Hawaii.
Smith said that the article could be interpreted to have asserted that Knightley bore personal responsibility for causing the tragic death of 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 Knightley", in which it referred to her emphatic denial that she suffered from anorexia.
By innuendo, he added, the later article suggested that 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 that it was important to note that, from the outset, Knightley had, through her lawyers, offered her sincere sympathies to Mazurek's mother and family for what was obviously a tragic and distressing loss for them.
Smith said that Knightley's weight had never fluctuated more than a few kilos throughout her adult life, and remained at an acceptable level taking into account age, gender and height.
Kate Wilson, counsel for Associated Newspapers, which has also agreed to reimburse Knightley's costs, offered its apologies.
She said: "The defendant accepts that the claimant does not bear responsibility for Sophie's death, does not have an eating disorder, and has not misled the public."
- INDEPENDENT
