Emma Watson has blamed her movie star lifestyle for her driving ban.
The Harry Potter star, 35, received a six-month driving ban in July after driving at 38mph in a 30mph zone.
She already had nine points on her licence before the offence, which took place in Oxford.
She explained how her penalty points started racking up after she became a student at Oxford University in 2023 and had to start driving herself everywhere, after years of being driven to movie sets.
Emma, who also revealed that she has taken up cycling since the disqualification, admitted she has found it ‘humbling’ that she can’t do ‘basic life things’.
She told the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast: ‘But I think again it’s funny, like I went from, when you work on movies – I don’t know if people know this – but they literally won’t insure you to drive yourself to work.
Emma Watson has blamed her movie star lifestyle for her driving ban (pictured in 2024)
The Harry Potter star, 35, received a six-month driving ban in July after driving at 38mph in a 30mph zone
‘I’ve asked so many times, you have to be driven, it’s not a choice.
‘And especially because they need you there down to the minute basically depending on what they have going on.
‘And so I went from basically only driving myself on weekends or during a holiday to then when I became a student driving myself all the time.
‘And yeah, I did not have the experience or skills, clearly, which I now will and do but I think again this is one of the awkward transitions I made from kind of living this very very structured life to living a life where I was like, “Ok, I guess I’m going to get myself to this place”.
‘And I would do this thing that I’ve basically not done since I was 10 years old.
‘So it’s been a discovery and a journey that’s been yeah, I guess, humbling, because on a movie set I’m able to do all these extremely complex things – stunts, sing, dance, like ‘Do this thing, do that, whatever’ and I’m like ‘Yep, don’t worry about it guys, no worries, I’ve got you’.
‘And then I get home and I’m like, ‘Ok, Emma, you seem unable to remember keys, money, or to like keep yourself at 30 miles an hour in a 30 mile speed limit. Like, you don’t seem able to do some pretty basic life things’.
‘I had days where I just wanted to turn around to people and be like ‘I used to be good at things, ok, I used to be really good at things. I know it doesn’t look like that now, but.., I can do things normally.
Emma, who also revealed that she has taken up cycling since the disqualification, admitted she has found it ‘humbling’ that she can’t do ‘basic life things’ (pictured in 2023)
‘So, yeah, it’s been humbling.’
Emma has not acted in a film since December 2018, when she finished working on Greta Gerwig’s Little Women adaptation.
She rose to fame aged 10 starring as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film series.
On her new hobby, she said: ‘I recently started riding a bicycle and, yes, I started riding a bicycle before my driving ban.
‘But now it’s particularly fortuitous that I also ride a bicycle for that reason.’
Speaking about the news breaking about her ban, she said: ‘Oh my God, I was getting phone calls, like it’s on the BBC, it’s on international worldwide news.
‘I was like, my shame is everywhere.
‘In a funny way the sweetest result of it was getting so many messages from people being like ‘Happened to me too – I feel you, this is awful, it sucks’ which was kind of nice in a way.’
