Emma Watson said she was left ‘violated’ by what photographers did on her 18th birthday.
The British treasure grew up on our screens, starring as Hermione Granger in the beloved Harry Potter films. The age of 10 when the first was released, she was 21 when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 landed in cinemas.
And going from a child to an adult in the limelight meant she likely had to grow up a little bit quicker than most.
No longer appearing on our screens as often, she’s owed a lot of recognition for her time outside of being a child star too, with Watson being outspoken about gender equality issues throughout her career, helping to launch HeForShe as UN Women goodwill Ambassador.
During a 2016 event for the movement, she spoke about what happened on her 18th birthday. The Beauty and the Beast actress said at the time she was a ‘child actress who [was] still making a transition.’
“I came out of my 18th birthday party and photographers lay down on the pavement and took photographs up my skirt, which were then published on the front of the English tabloids the next morning,” she recalled.
“If they published the photographs 24 hours earlier they would have been illegal but, because I turned 18, they were legal.”
Speaking about this horrific incident at the time in 2009, Watson said: “I realised that overnight I’d become fair game. One photographer lay down on the floor to get a shot up my skirt …
“The night it was legal for them to do it, they did it. I woke up the next day and felt completely violated by it all.”
Over a decade after the actor was victim to it, this vile practice of ‘upskirting’ was made a crime in England and Wales in April 2019.
The Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019 applies in instances when a person takes a pictures beneath someone’s clothing without consent, to observe their genitals or buttocks whether covered or uncovered by underwear.
It also applies when the offender has a motive of either gaining sexual gratification or causing humiliation, distress or alarm to the victim.
Offenders can face up to two years in jail, with most serious placed on the sex offenders register.
In the limelight for most of her life and hailed for her campaigning for gender equality, Watson said in 2014: ‘I’m a feminist because I’ve known sexism since I was eight years old.”
