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Emma Watson recalls being ‘violated’ on her 18th birthday by paparazzi

Published 12:47 21 May 2023 BST

Updated 17:00 19 May 2023 BST

Ellen Fitzpatrick

Emma Watson recalls being ‘violated’ on her 18th birthday by paparazzi

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Emma Watson has recalled feeling "violated" by paparazzi on her 18th birthday and ruining her big celebration.

After rising to fame as Hermione Granger in Harry Potter, Emma was on everyone's radar. And when she turned 18, the world was watching her grow up which came with many challenges for the young actress. The 33-year-old reminisced on her eighteenth birthday at a HeForShe launch event, saying how the paparazzi had made her feel so terrible on what should have been the best night of her life at the time. Watson said: "I mean, I was obviously a child actress who is still making a transition, and I remember on my 18th birthday, 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.

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Credit: Getty[/caption] "If they published the photographs 24 hours earlier they would have been illegal but, because I turned 18, they were legal." Speaking again about this in 2009, the then 18 year old recalled: "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." And again in 2014, Emma said of the incident as she became the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador in New York: "I’m a feminist because I’ve known sexism since I was eight years old."

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