Keira Knightley has actually gone there.
The veteran actress has written a letter to her husband and three-year old daughter (for Scarlett Curtis’ new book, Feminists Don’t Wear Pink (And Other Lies) in which she takes issue with Kate Middleton.
Yes, Knightley has something negative to say about the most universally beloved person on the planet.
In the essay, which is titled “The Weaker Sex,” Knightley compares how she looked and acted after childbirth … to how the Duchess of Cambridge appeared mere hours after she and Prince William welcomed their second child.
(Knightley actually gave birth a day later.)
“She was out of hospital seven hours later with her face made up and high heels on,” wrote Knightley, adding:
“The face the world wants to see. Hide. Hide our pain, our bodies splitting, our breasts leaking, our hormones raging. Look beautiful, look stylish, don’t show your battleground, Kate.”
This did happen, that much is certain.
Looking immaculate and all made up, Middleton smiled for photographers (and, really, the entire world) on the steps on a hospital in London.
She did the same thing with her third child, as you can see here:
There was definitely a bit of backlash at the time, but little of it was aimed at Middleton herself.
Most of it was focused on a family and a tradition that basically required Middleton to put on this face for millions so soon after giving birth.
“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,” Knightley wrote.
She continued:
“Stand there with your girl and be shot by a pack of male photographers. This stuff is easy. It happens every day. What’s the big deal? So does death, you s–t-heads, but you don’t have to pretend that’s easy.”
For the record:
Kate and William presented their first child Prince George, now 5, and their youngest son Prince Louis, now 5 months old, in the same manner.
This is just how a Duchess has to roll.
In her letter, though, Knightley thought back to how loved ones visited the hospital after she became a mother and she “wore a hospital gown with paper pants on.”
She was still bleeding from childbirth.
She recalled how she was exposed, even showing her cellulite, as she hurried to take care of the newborn upon hearing her cries.
“My breast is out in front of them all and I don’t care,” she wrote.
“Your life is my life. You need me. I’m there. F-ck them all with their eyes watching, their embarrassed faces at my animalistic semi-nudity. Is this soft motherhood?”
There was shit and vomit and blood, Knightley remembers, detailing the graphic consequences of childbirth for all women.
For Middleton, too.
But the world only got a look at the pristine version of this popular Royal.
“I remember my battleground,” she writes in this essay. “Your battleground and life pulsating. Surviving. And I am the weaker sex? You are?”
It’s an interesting take, isn’t it?
What do you think of Knightley’s overall criticism here?