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.”