Over the past year or so, actress Kate Beckinsale has been through a lot. Her stepfather, actor Roy Battersby, died in January. Her mother has been dealing with cancer. And throughout it all, Beckinsale herself has been very ill and spent a lot of time in hospital. At one point, the stress of her situation led to her burning a hole in her esophagus, which led to vomiting fits and blood loss. She’s experienced a lot of social media harassment throughout this, largely of the body-shaming kind, and she’s fired off a number of clapbacks against said trolls. Now, she’s going after the Daily Mail, one of many British tabloids that have obsessed over Beckinsale’s recent troubles.
On Instagram, she shared a headline on the Mail Online website, wherein columnist Richard Eden who ‘Kate Beckinsale opens up about the ‘difficult’ time she’s going through with her mother’s cancer.’ The headline and ensuing story are written in a manner that suggests Beckinsale actually talked to Eden and offered him an exclusive update on her family life. She didn’t do that, and she wants the world to know. She wrote: ‘Richard Eden was not at this event despite implying that he was and had a conversation with me - in actual fact I was ambushed at the end of a red carpet for a charity event I was a chair of in aid of disadvantaged children and refugees by a woman I thought at first was part of the event . Once she started asking personal questions she was shut down by both myself and one of the event organisers .’
She adds that, despite her team asking the publication to remove this article, they have refused to do so. ‘Do better, daily mail - our entire industry knows that you hate and shame women . In fact, it is apparent to everyone.’
She’s calling out a depressingly popular tabloid tactic: ambush someone under questionable and inappropriate circ*mstances, get a quick soundbite about a specific issue, then spin it into an ‘exclusive’ that can largely be used for SEO bait, regardless of its accuracy or ethical qualities. The Daily Mail is but the most ruthlessly efficient executor of this strategy. They pump out more content than anyone else, having gamified the system to a terrifying degree. A big part of this mess involves mining social media for easy ‘reporting.’
Beckinsale is no stranger to this. In 2003, she received a published apology from the Daily Mail after it claimed she spent time in a ‘clinic’ following her split from the actor Michael Sheen. In 2009, she received £20,000 in damages from the Express Newspapers group after the Daily Express reported that she was ‘facing heartbreak’ after losing out on a major movie role. Late last year, the Daily Mail had ‘exclusive’ photographs of her and her mother taking their stepfather to hospital. They’ve posted a lot of articles on Beckinsale over the past year. They’ve written 25 pieces that either feature her or are centred on her life in July alone. Most of them are ‘concern’ about her not acting her age, her illness-induced weight loss, her grief, and her love life. It’s pretty standard tabloid guff, the kind of fluff that doesn’t fully reveal its insidious nature upon first glance. Reading that so-called ‘exclusive’ about Beckinsale’s mother and her health, it seems prying but not any more so than how this rag usually covers such stories. But then you remember how it was obtained.
Also, it should surprise literally nobody but Richard Eden, the vulture who wrote that, is one of the media’s leading anti-Meghan Markle voices. His respect for women is evident, eh?
Beckinsale’s had a hard time lately, and she’s dealt with it by being pretty candid online. She’s also a noted kook whose Instagram presence is a delightful surprise, full of great one-liners, moments of slapstick, and a willingness from Beckinsale herself to be silly and anti-glamour. I once saw her described as the drag version of herself and that’s spot-on. So, amid her very raw grief over her stepfather, she’s done stuff like moon people from a hotel room, dance in her bikini, and cheer on the English football squad with a cheeky rewrite of the Lord’s Prayer. None of this is new to anyone who’s followed Beckinsale, but the concern-trolling misogyny is more potent than ever following her step-dad’s death and mother’s illness. It reminds me a lot of the way that people write about Britney Spears post-conservatorship, cloaking their obvious disdain for her unruly behaviour as some sort of alarm. There’s no real worry for Beckinsale in her grief or health troubles. It’s all just another excuse to treat her as a public punching bag.
So, this is your semi-regular reminder to never click on a single Daily Mail link. Do it for Kate Beckinsale.
