Keira Knightley reveals that she had a "mental breakdown" at age 22

Keira Knightley talks about her fight with fame (and paparazzi) in her early twenties.

In a revealing interview on The Hollywood journalistThe 33-year-old actress said she was mentally depressed at the age of 22 and honored.

"It was very expensive to see pictures of women falling apart," Knightley said. At the time, she said, paparazzi had covered Britney Spears' blackout, which had sparked media fervor.

"Because you wanted them to be sexy, but you wanted to punish them for this sexuality. If you do not collapse in front of them, then it was worth it to crack you in front of them, "said Knightley about the hordes of paparazzi that followed her at the time.

"So suddenly, there was a level of violence," he said, "in the air, it's not something that someone would be too good at." I think I always had a f-you button and it was so obvious that they wanted me to fall, and I had a "I'm not going to give you what you want," she said. "So there was a feeling of battle every day leaving the house."

Knightley was 22 years old in 2007 and was busy promoting two major films: Pirates of the Caribbean: at the end of the world and Atonement.

Keira Knightley at the 2007 Premiere of Atonement in London

Jon Furniss / WireImage

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As to how the pressure and attention accompanying celebrity affected him, the Colette the actress said that it was overwhelming.

"I had a mental depression at age 22, so I took a sabbatical year and I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder because of all that," she said. declared.

"I went deep into therapy and all that, and [a therapist] "It's great, it's great. I usually come here and I have people who think people are talking about them and who think they are being followed, but in reality they are not. You are the first person who is really so! Knightley said, laughing.

Knightley said she took a year off to travel when she was nominated for a BAFTA and Golden Globe for Atonement In 2008.

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The actress was struggling with "major panic attacks" at the time and said that she wished to ignore the BAFTAs, but that she had gone there to avoid unwanted negative attention. .

"In fact, I practiced hypnotherapy to be able to stand on the BAFTA red carpet and not have a panic attack," she revealed. "Hypnotherapy worked because I was there and did not have a panic attack."

Since then, Knightley has focused on educating his daughter Edie Knightley Righton, a 3-year-old, alongside her husband James Righton. She currently has two films to be released this year, Colette and Nutcracker and the Four Kingdoms.