Keira Knightley has blasted Duchess Catherine’s “perfect” post-birth appearance.
The 33-year-old actress – who has three-year-old daughter Edie with husband James Righton – has slammed the impossible standards for women after giving birth, citing the royal’s perfectly made-up appearance as she left hospital just hours after giving birth to Princess Charlotte in 2015, one day after Keira had Edie.
In her essay The Weaker Sex, which appears in the collection Feminists Don’t Wear Pink (And Other Lies), Keira wrote: “We stand and watch the TV screen. [Kate] was out of hospital seven hours later with her face made up and high heels on. The face the world wants to see.
Read more: Pregnant Pippa Middleton looks radiant as due date approaches
“Hide. Hide our pain, our bodies splitting, our breasts leaking, our hormones raging. Look beautiful. Look stylish, don’t show your battleground, Kate.
“Seven hours after your fight with life and death, seven hours after your body breaks open, and bloody, screaming life comes out. Don’t show. Don’t tell. Stand there with your girl and be shot by a pack of male photographers.”
Read more: Prince Harry and Meghan holidaying in Bognor?!
Keira insisted that the reality is far from pretty and she urged women to be more open.
Writing directly to her daughter about her own experience, Keira said: “My vagina split. You came out with your eyes open. Arms up in the air. Screaming. They put you on to me, covered in blood, vernix, your head misshapen from the birth canal. Pulsating, gasping, screaming.”
Keira also described her painful first time breastfeeding, writing: “You latched on to my breast immediately, hungrily, I remember the pain. The mouth clenched tight around my nipple, light sucking on and sucking out.
“I remember the [bleep], the vomit, the blood, the stitches. I remember my battleground. Your battleground and life pulsating. Surviving. And I am the weaker sex? You are?”
And Keira blasted the double standards set for male and female parents in Hollywood.
She wrote: “I turn up on time, word perfect, with ideas and an opinion. I am up with you [her daughter] all night if you need me. Sometimes I cry I’m so tired. Up with you all night and work all day…
“My male colleagues can be late, can not know their lines. They can shout and scream and throw things.
“They can turn up drunk or not turn up at all. They don’t see their children. They’re working. They need to concentrate.”
Do you agree with Keira’s concerns? Leave us a comment on our Facebook page @EntertainmentDailyFix and let us know what you think.