Kate Winslet has spoken up about the “damage” that unfavorable tabloid headlines about her weight and looks caused her confidence in her early acting career.

Following her appearances in Hamlet and Titanic in the late 1990s, Winslet was subjected to an onslaught of weight shaming from the tabloid media and celebrities such as Joan Rivers, who said, “If Kate Winslet had dropped a few pounds, the Titanic would never have sunk.”

Kate recounted in an interview with The Guardian: “In my 20s, people would talk about my weight a lot. And I would be called to comment on my physical self. Well, then I got this label of being ballsy and outspoken. No, I was just defending myself.”

When Winslet acted with Leonardo DiCaprio in the 1997 picture, she was only 21 years old. She went on to say in the interview that the stories and tabloid writers were “almost laughable” in their treatment of her weight and looks when she was only 19!

“It was almost laughable how shocking, how critical, how straight-up cruel tabloid journalists were to me,” she recalled. “I was still figuring out who the hell I bloody well was! They would comment on my size, they’d estimate what I weighed, they’d print the supposed diet I was on. It was critical and horrible and so upsetting to read.”

The criticism she received from British media when she was a teenager was so tough to deal with that the Oscar winner was hesitant to go to Hollywood because she was afraid of the sorts of headlines she would encounter there.

“It damaged my confidence. I didn’t want to go to Hollywood because I remember thinking, ‘God, if this is what they’re saying to me in England, then what will happen when I get there?’ Also, it tampers with your evolving impression of what’s beautiful, you know? I did feel very on my own. For the simple reason that nothing can really prepare you for… that,” she said.

Reflecting on the negative press she received, Winslet said it’s interesting to observe how things have improved over the previous several decades.

“It also made me feel so… so moved. By how different it is now.”

“Do you remember that period in history when suddenly female tennis players became extraordinarily vocal and much more muscular than we’d ever seen them before? Well, I suddenly feel like that’s happening in the acting world,” she told The Guardian. “Partly because we are emerging from this spectacular #MeToo period, but also because women are feeling an inherent sense of connection with each other. We’re less afraid to say what we think now.”

All changed for Winslet when her and ex-husband Jim Threapleton welcomed their daughter, Mia, 20, into the world, she said. “And so all that s—t just kind of… evaporated,” she said of becoming a mother.

The event, according to Winslet, inspired her to nurture Mia with a strong sense of body positivity.

“I stand in front of the mirror and say to Mia, ‘We are so lucky we have a shape. We’re so lucky we’re curvy. We’re so lucky that we’ve got good bums.’ And she’ll say, ‘Mummy, I know, thank God,’ ” Winslet said in 2015. “It’s paying off.”