Kate Winslet Speaks Out On Media Intrusion After Titanic

Kate Winslet has spoken about the “appalling” treatment she faced from the press and the loss of privacy that followed her rise to fame after James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster Titanic. She recalled that paparazzi tapped her phone and even went through her bins to track what she was eating. After the film’s release, her image appeared relentlessly across newspapers and magazines, often accompanied by what she described as “awful” and “abusive” labels. Winslet said support from close friends and family helped her get through that period.

She also reflected on her struggles with body image, saying negative comments began long before Titanic. As a child, classmates called her “blubber,” and a drama teacher once told her she would have to “settle for the fat girl parts.” In her early 20s, during the making of the film, she went on and off diets and often barely ate.

While Winslet described the experience of making Titanic as extraordinary, she said her life changed dramatically after its release. She recalled magazine covers using altered images of her without consent, an issue she had spoken about publicly in the early 2000s. Media scrutiny intensified again in 2010 during reports of her separation from her second husband, filmmaker Sam Mendes.

Winslet also spoke about facing discouraging comments as a female director. She made her directorial debut with Goodbye June and said she was often told to remember to be confident in her decisions, advice she believes would not be given to a male director.