In the latest in a long line of examples showing how the smallest rumor can spread like wildfire across the internet, social media was recently awash with fans posting lengthy tributes to Emma Watson and wishing the former Harry Potter star all of the best with her impending retirement.
The only problem was that the story originated in a British tabloid, and The Daily Mail is hardly renowned as the most reputable of outlets, with Watson making no comments to signal that she was stepping away from her life in front of the camera. The 30 year-old is notoriously publicity shy, but that generally comes with the territory of spending the vast majority of your life under intense scrutiny as one of the three leads in the biggest franchise on the planet at the time.
Of course, actors take breaks quite regularly, sometimes incredibly lengthy ones that last for years if not decades in some cases, and it seems that’s simply what’s going on with Watson, too, as her manager Jason Weinberg has now publicly denied that she’ll be retiring completely, making it pretty clear that the initial story was very wide of the mark
It’s not as if she’s been hugely prolific anyway, having only appeared in ten feature films since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 was released a decade ago. Not only that, but Watson hasn’t been seen on screen since Greta Gerwig’s awards season favorite Little Women in 2019, and she’s never seemed all that interested in playing the Hollywood game as it is. If a public figure goes dark on social media and steps out of the limelight, the response these days is to assume that they’ve either done something terrible or they want to be left alone for a little bit, and given that Emma Watson has always been protective of her privacy, it’s definitely the latter.