Shooting down rumors she was bullied out of the school, the 'Harry Potter' beauty fesses up, 'I was in denial. I wanted to pretend I wasn't as famous as I was.'
- Jun 8, 2011
AceShowbiz - Emma Watson is speaking up about the real reason why she decided to leave Brown University. In an interview with Sunday Times Style Magazine, the Hermione Granger of the "Harry Potter" series confessed, "I was in denial. I wanted to pretend I wasn't as famous as I was. I was trying to seek out normality, but I kind of have to accept who I am, the position I'm in and what happened."
Responding to rumors she was bullied out of the school, the 21-year-old said, "It made me so sad when all this stuff came out that I left Brown because I was being bullied." She added, "It made no sense at all. Brown has been the opposite. I've never even been asked for an autograph on campus. I threw a party for nearly 100 students and not a single person put a photo on Facebook."
She pointed out further, "Anyway, even if I was being given a hard time, I wasn't going to wuss out of university because someone said 'Wingardium leviosa' to me in a corridor, or 'Ten points for Gryffindor.' I've been dealing with the media since I was nine. If I can't stand up to a few people giving me a hard time, it's a bit pathetic, really. I've had so much worse."
During the interview, the "My Week with Marilyn" actress also admitted that her fame gets in the way of her dating life. "I'd say to my friends, 'Why hasn't X called me? Why doesn't anyone ever pursue me?' They're like, 'Probably because they're intimidated.' It must be the fame wall," she said. "It must be the circus that goes around me. Me, as a person, I find it hard to believe I would be intimidating."
Back in 2010, Emma announced her decision to take a break from her studies to focus on "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II". On her website, she wrote, "As you know, I love Brown and I love studying pretty much more than anything but recently I've had so much to juggle that being a student and fulfilling my other commitments has become a little impossible."
After it was later revealed that she quit the university altogether, words started to spread that Emma made the decision because of bullying. Her representative, however, insisted that the actress will switch to another college in the autumn "to pursue a different course which sadly Brown does not offer".
