Director Apologises To Keira Knightley For ‘Petty, Mean And Hurtful’ Comments

Keira Knightley John Carney comments

by Edwina Langley |
Published on

It was pretty damning, what director John Carney said about Keira Knightley at the weekend...

In an interview with The Independent the Begin Again director slammed Keira for having 'an entourage that follow[ed] her everywhere', saying it was 'very hard to get any real work done.'

He went on to refer to her as a 'supermodel' – 'I'll never make a film with supermodels again' – and alleged: 'Keira’s thing is to hide who you are, and I don’t think you can be an actor and do that.'

'It’s hard being a film actor,' he continued, 'and it requires a certain level of honesty and self-analysis that I don’t think she’s ready for yet and I certainly don’t think she was ready for on that film.'

Keira Knightley John Carney
Keira Knightley on set of 'Begin Again', 2012 ©Getty

Not only that, but he then slated her performance as the singer-songwriter Gretta in the film he directed and wrote, concluding: 'I think the real problem was that Keira wasn’t a singer and wasn’t a guitar player and it’s very hard to make music seem real if it’s not with musicians... And as much as I tried to make it work I think that she didn’t quite come out as a guitar-playing singer-songwriter.'

We mean, OUCH. And also – what the hell?!

However, in a recent turn of events, the director took to Twitter to apologise unreservedly for his ill-mannered comments.

In a tweet captioned 'From a director who feels like a complete idiot', he posted a snap of an iPhone note conveying his shame.

'I said a number of things about Keira which were petty, mean and hurtful,' he wrote. 'I'm ashamed of myself,' he said, adding: 'In trying to pick holes in my own owrk, I ended up blaming someone else. That's not only bad directing, that's shoddy behaviour, that I am not in any way proud of.'

He also confirmed he had written to apologise to Keira, but said he wanted to 'publicly, and unreservedly' apologise to her fans, friends and anyone else he had offended too.

Too darn right in our view. Let's hope that's the last we hear about it.

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