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After being cast as Hermione Granger in Harry Potter film series at the age of 10, Emma Watson spent his preteen and teenage years in the public eye. The franchise remains hugely popular and has turned all of its young stars into big names. So Watson knows firsthand what it's like grow in the spotlight , especially as a girl and then a young woman, some good and some downright despicable. The former child star spoke out about his sexualization by the public and the press from an early age. In fact, in a shocking speech, she revealed that when she was 18, paparazzi were lying on the sidewalk outside her party waiting to take pictures with her dress on.

Read on to see what today's 33-year-old had to say about the disturbing experience and sexism in the industry in general.

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As reported United Kingdom , while speaking at an event for the UN gender equality initiative HeForShe in 2016, Watson called the paparazzi back addressing him after his 18th birthday party, which took place in 2008.

"I remember on my 18th birthday I walked out of my birthday party and photographers lay down on the pavement and took pictures up my skirt, which were then published on the front page of the English tabloid the next morning," she said.

"If they had released the photos 24 hours earlier, they would have been illegal," she pointed out, "but since I had just turned 18, they were legal."

In 2019, the The UK passed a law on “upskirting” , which made it illegal to take a picture under women's clothes without their consent, as reported by Reuters. Anyone found guilty of this crime faces up to two years in prison. (In the USA., laws vary by state, as reported Vice ; Although the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act 2004 protects those with a "reasonable expectation of privacy".)

At the HeForShe event, Watson noted that dealing with paparazzi trying to take lewd photos of her whenever they legally could was one aspect of fame she Harry Potter the cast mates didn't need to bother.

"Obviously Dan [Radcliffe] And Rupert [Grint] , who were my male co-stars, don't wear skirts," she said, "but I think that's just one example of how my transition into womanhood was handled very differently by the tabloid press and by my male colleagues."

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In 2014, Watson, United Nations Global Goodwill Ambassador, gave a speech at the UN to launch HeForShe. She detailed some of the sexism she experienced that prompted her to take part in the campaign.

"I started to challenge gender biases when, at eight years old, I was confused about being called 'bossy', because I wanted to direct the plays we would put on for our parents. , but the boys weren't," she said. "When at 14 I started being sexualized by certain elements of the press."

Something happened following the speech that only underscored his points.

"After my speech in September, a website was created threatening to post naked pictures of me with a countdown," she said during a question-and-answer session at Facebook's London office in 2015, as reported by The Daily Beast. "I knew it was a hoax - I knew the photos didn't exist - but I think a lot of people close to me knew gender equality was an issue, but they didn't really think about it. that urgent… On the contrary, it made me much more determined. I was just angry. It made me so mad I was like, 'That's why I have to do this!'"

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Many other female stars have shared similar stories about their sexualization, especially around their 18th birthday. ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb

“I definitely faced more sexualization in the last two weeks after I turned 18,” stranger things star Millie Bobby Brown said on the podcast The guilty feminist in 2022. "I definitely see a difference between how people act and how the press and social media react to my coming of age." She continued, "In my life, in my opinion, I don't think it should change anything. But it's disgusting and it's true. And so I think it's just a really good representation of what's going on. going on in the world and how young girls are sexualized.”

BuzzFeed News reported that a site that appeared on Reddit was tagged "NSFW" and countdown to Brown's 18th birthday . Unfortunately, these countdowns online have also been established for other stars, including Kendall Jenner And Marie-Kate And Ashley Olsen , according to a post on Medium.