Actress Sienna Miller has described the “judgement” over being pregnant at the age of 41 and having a 14-year age gap with her partner as “double standards”.
The star discussed comments about her being “the older woman” and expecting a baby with 27-year-old actor Oli Green.
People “are comfortable with a way of living that has existed for many years, which is very misogynistic and patriarchal”, she told Vogue's podcast. Miller's second daughter is due this month, the magazine said.
She continued: “Me being the older woman in a partnership with a younger person, or being pregnant over 40 – and that that's ‘irresponsible' and ‘the poor child' – it's such double standards and I think it's so unquestioned in people's minds.
“It's just a trite, easy target. But it's absurd.
“I was very fortunate. I wasn't necessarily trying to get pregnant. This happened as a total surprise and biologically was something that my body was able to do.
“And I just find that judgement so one-sided and it's so sad.”
Green plays Rupert Finch, a classmate of Prince William's in Netflix series The Crown. Miller, whose credits include American Sniper, American Woman and Anatomy of a Scandal, also has a daughter, Marlowe, aged 11, who she co-parents with actor Tom Sturridge.
“I'd love to get to a point where I didn't feel the need to make a joke of my being older and having a baby, to show I'm in on the joke,” she told the magazine.
“I don't think you can legislate on matters of the heart. I certainly have never been able to,” she said.
‘Relationships different today'
“I see it with Oli's friends,” she added. “There's awareness of the dynamics that enter relationships between men and women now that we just didn't have 20 or 25 years ago.
“My whole adolescence was dodging bullets and advances in a really delicate way, to not offend somebody. Whereas the girls that he grew up with, they're probably like, ‘No – no, thank you. Moving on.'” Miller also discussed press intrusion, having settled a case with the publisher of the News of the World and the Sun over phone hacking in 2021.
News Group paid her a significant sum of money but made no admission of liability regarding what she alleged took place. She told Vogue she had thought hard about people “rubbernecking” – wanting to look at others' misfortune.
“Is it because we're happy that it's not us? The tabloid media really exploited that weak chink in our psychology,” she said.
— CutC by bbc.com
