Sienna Miller says she was left “traumatized” by alleged phone hacking to the point she “blacked out.”
It was in 2005 that news broke Miller’s then partner, Jude Law, was having an affair with his children’s nanny. The scandal dominated headlines at the time.
In a new BBC documentary, “Scandalous: Phone Hacking on Trial,” the actor reveals that two days after the news broke she found out she was pregnant. A short while later, she alleges she received a call from British tabloid The Sun saying they knew about the pregnancy and wanted to break the story.
Miller’s then-publicist, Ciara Parkes, who also features in the doc, alleges the call about the pregnancy came from The Sun’s former editor, Rebekah Brooks. (According to the BBC, The Sun’s publisher News Group (NGN) denies this account and says Brooks was aware of any unlawful information gathering).
“I had to tell Sienna that [the story about the pregnancy] had come out,” Parkes says in the doc. “She broke down. She screamed very loudly. It was a very guttural scream. I could hear her thumping to the floor.”
Although The Sun agreed not to break the story, it eventually appeared in a U.S. publication. The Sun then followed it with their own write-up.
“I felt somebody must be selling stories,” Miller says. “And I sat down the five people in our lives who knew, and interrogated them violently. I was under such intense pressure. And said, it has to be one of you, so who is it? And lots of tears and denials.”
She adds that she become so paranoid she started to borrow friends’ phones to make calls.
“I don’t think I remember six weeks of my life. I actually don’t remember,” Miller adds. “I think I was in such a deep state of trauma by that point that I totally blacked out.”
Miller eventually settled a phone hacking claim with NGN in 2021 without any admission of liability from the publisher. The BBC reports that the pregnancy article is the “subject of ongoing litigation” and NGN were therefore limited in being able to respond.
The documentary also speaks to other alleged victims of “phone hacking,” a term that relates to the interception of voicemails without consent. They include Paul McCartney’s ex-wife Heather Mills and former “Coronation Street” actress Shobna Gulati.
