Harry Potter star and women’s rights advocate Emma Watson has revealed how she was motivated to keep fighting for women’s equality by anonymous hackers who threatened to post nude pictures of the actor in the wake of her seminal #HeforShe speech at the United Nations last September. 

Watson has used her fame and notoriety as Hermione in the Harry Potter film series to become a leading voice for the women’s rights movement. 

“After I gave my speech at the UN, there was a website threatening to release naked pictures of me,” Watson said in a Facebook Q&A. 

“I was raging, it made me so angry. I was like, this is why I have to be doing this. If anything, if they were trying to put me off it, it did the opposite.” 

“I knew it was a hoax but I think a lot of people that were close to me knew gender equality was an issue but didn’t think it was that urgent, that it was a thing of the past.”

“This is a real thing that’s happening now, women are receiving threats.”

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Watson used the International Women’s Day interview to explain why she became so passionate about women’s rights.

“We need yin and yang. We need that balance. We need female representation. We need female leadership,” she said.

“Our society in general devalues the she, the qualities that are associated with the feminine that are found in all of us.”

“There’s this imbalance, this distortion that is just hindering our progress. It’s causing discord, violence and fear the world over.”

Watson is a UN Goodwill Women Ambassador and explained that the problem needs to be addressed by people of both genders.

“It’s awkward to acknowledge there is a problem, but we need to understand we are complicit,” she said. “A lot of the criticism I have had in my life, some of the harshest moments, have been comments from other women,” she said.

“It’s not enough to ask men to come and support us. We really need to support each other. So I guess I would say be brave enough to acknowledge that things are not there yet and support each other.”

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