KEIRA KNIGHTLEY has defended her new movie THE DUCHESS after images of late royal DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES were included in the trailer for the film.

In the new movie, Knightley plays Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, a distant relation of Diana - who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

The promo for The Duchess sparked outrage by showing pictures of the late Princess and emphasising the link between the film's lead character and her modern-day descendant.

The trailer, which is currently being shown in cinemas ahead of the movie's release next month (Sep08), shows juxtaposed images of Knightley's character and Princess Diana and reads: "The two were related by ancestry and united by destiny."

And Knightley has stepped into the debate about the promo - insisting her character should not be compared to the late royal.

She says, "I am Georgiana. I am not Diana. The film is not about Diana."

The promo has also come under fire from Amanda Foreman, who wrote the biography which the film is based on, who called it "a bad joke," and the director Saul Dibb, who blamed "the marketing men" for the short.

Dibb adds, "We didn't want to make any parallels between the two women. It didn't govern the shooting of the film or the performances."