Emma Watson, familiar to fans of the Harry Potter film series as the boy wizard's brainy gal pal Hermione Granger, denies media reports that bullying chased her out of Brown University. In a statement on her website Friday, the British thesp said her decision to take the spring semester off had "nothing to do with bullying." Fact, nobody has ever bullied her, she says - at Brown or elsewhere. The accusation "seems beyond unfair," she adds. Media reports of the bullying were attributed to an anonymous Brown "insider."
The New York Daily News recently reported that classmates shouted "Three points for Gryffindor!" (a reference to her character's dorm in the Potter series) whenever Watson answered a question in class. Watson has denied that ever happened.