Keira Knightley accepted £3,000 libel damages yesterday over “deeply offensive and embarrassing” suggestions that she had an eating disorder and bore responsibility for the death of a 19-year-old anorexic.

The actress, 22, was filming and could not be at the High Court for the settlement of her action against the Daily Mail. But her mother and her partner were there to hear the solicitor Simon Smith tell Mr Justice Eady that the suggestions in the January 2007 story were “entirely false”. The damages – which Ms Knightley will match – will be donated to Beat, the eating disorder charity.

Mr Smith said that the story, headed “If pictures like this one of Keira carried a health warning, my darling daughter might have lived”, was accompanied by a photo of the actress in a bi-kini. It could, he said, be interpreted as asserting that Ms Knightley had responsibility for the tragic death of Sophie Mazu-rek. The reader might infer that the actress had set out to lose an excessive amount of weight to meet the film and fashion industries’ wish for a stick-thin look, regardless of the influence that this would have on others.

But her weight barely fluctuated at all, he said. She did not weigh herself regularly, did not deliberately lose weight and was not a fitness fanatic. He emphasised that she had offered her sympathies to Ms Mazu-rek’s family for their tragic loss.

Kate Wilson, counsel for Associated Newspapers, which has agreed to reimburse Ms Knightley’s costs, offered apologies.

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