Kate Winslet reflects on being body-shamed over iconic Titanic nude scene

Kate Winslet: “I was consistently told I was the wrong shape." Photo / Getty Images

While Titanic had a lasting influence on the trajectory of Kate Winslet’s career, it also had a huge impact on something else: her mental health.

While the blockbuster filmed earned Winslet her first Oscar nomination, the actress confessed there was one thing that had followed her since the 1997 movie hit screens that she could do without: the media’s “awful scrutiny and judgment” when she was a young starlet.

The actress got candid with Vogue in a recent interview, shedding light on “the most awful scrutiny and judgment”, adding: “I would go so far as to say bullying, from mainstream media when I was in my 20s”, reports Decider.

“I was consistently told I was the wrong shape,” she said. “I was consistently told I would have to settle for less.”

Winslet spoke on her decision to do a nude scene in her upcoming movie Lee, a biopic documenting the life of wartime photographer Lee Miller.

Winslet revealed she was unable to exercise to prepare for the nude scene due to a back injury on the first day of filming.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in Titanic.

“I had three massive haematomas on my spine, huge,” she confessed. “I could barely stand up.”

“I had to be really f***ing brave about letting my body be its softest version of itself and not hiding from that,” she went on. “And believe me, people amongst our own team would say, ‘You might just want to sit up a bit.’ And I’d go, ‘Why? [Because of] the bit of flesh you can see? No, that’s the way it’s going to be!’”

In the past, The Holiday actress admitted people were “so mean” to her about how her body looked in Titanic. While on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, she dubbed the criticism she received at the time as “borderline abusive”, reports Variety.

However, despite it all, Winslet gushed about how the body-shaming culture had changed following the #MeToo movement.

“Young actresses now … they are unafraid. It makes me so proud. And I think, yes, all the s**t flinging, all the struggle, all the using my voice for years, often being finger-pointed at and laughed at — I don’t give a s**t! It was all bloody worth it,” she added.

“Because the culture is changing in the way that I couldn’t in my wildest dreams have imagined in my 20s.”

Lee recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the biopic was dubbed as “remarkable”.