Keira Knightley has had second thoughts about her strict policy on fairy tales. In 2018, she told USA Today: “I’m being very careful about fairy tales with my kid because I don’t like the message that a lot of them have. So The Little Mermaid has been banned. Cinderella has been banned. I haven’t looked at Snow White again, but that may be banned, as well.”
The 34-year-old admits to Porter in a cover story that she’s relented and is allowing her daughter Edie, 5, to watch more. She and husband James Reighton also welcomed Delilah last September.
She tells Porter: “She’s watched them all now. When we watched Sleeping Beauty, she said, ‘It’s not OK that man kissed her without her permission!’ I can’t tell you how pleased I was. If I don’t do anything else, I’ve managed to drum that in!”
Knightley also discusses the perfection expected from mothers … and how unattainable it is. “I think it’s important to counter a single narrative,” she considers. “I don’t think you shouldn’t present the perfect side of motherhood because, every so often, you might have the perfect side of it and you should celebrate that. But the rest of it also exists. The first time round, I just felt that all I could see was this one narrative and it made me feel totally alone,” she recalls. “And then after whispered conversations with other mothers, I realized this is actually about our lives and our experiences not being told fully. That’s where I had a problem with it.”
