Emma Watson rose to fame when she was 11 years old, and she had millions of fans and millions of dollars in her bank account before she was even close to being an adult. She had the entire world at her fingertips.
But things took a tragic turn in 2008 when she turned 18 and legally became a woman.
Emma informed Forest Whitaker about what happened on her 18th birthday while chatting with him at the He For She Arts Week in New York in 2016.
I recall coming out of my 18th birthday party and photographers laying down on the pavement photographing me up to my skirt, which was then published on the front pages of English tabloid [newspapers] the following morning.
They would have been unlawful if they had released the photos 24 hours earlier, but because I had just turned 18, they were allowed.
And obviously, my male co-stars Dan [Radcliffe] and Rupert [Grint] don’t wear skirts, but I believe that’s just one example of how the tabloid press treated my transition to femininity quite differently than it did for my male counterparts.
When it happened, I recall seeing those photographs all over the news.
Despite the presence of her co-stars, all of whom were equally famous, those photographs were all that was talked about.
The paparazzi photographed her getting out of a car while wearing see-through pants from every angle, and unfortunately, they were able to get exactly what they wanted.
She said that the English tabloids released them the next morning, which is correct; but, what is notable, and what makes this terrible scenario even worse, is that I saw these images in newspapers in my native country.
That is to say, Emma Watson, who was still a teenager at the time, had her private parts exposed to the public one day after she became an adult.
Don’t use nonsense excuses like “she shouldn’t have been wearing see-through panties” or “she should have known and come prepared.”
People are free to dress however they want when they want, and she was dressed nicely for the occasion. It’s not her fault the paparazzi showed up at that spot with the intention of photographing her up to her skirt.
Their behavior is reprehensible, and this and other sorts of harassment continue to occur to this day with no consequences.
Celebrities are simply people who work. Unlike us, their job is to entertain. Why should they have to sacrifice their privacy and ability to live a normal life because of a job?
