Emma Watson is the latest high-profile celebrity to drop out of college because of career demands. Could a nude photo scandal last Fall have something to do with it?
Watson had a rough go of it from classmates during the Fall semester. Soon after she returned to classes, a photograph circulated around campus via email that showed Watson topless standing next to a hot tub. It turns out the photo was fake, but the damage was done. Her highly coveted privacy was shattered.
Watson let it be known she was pissed, and there were reports of possible legal repercussions and disciplinary action by the school. But nothing to date appears to have happened, and the photo has been widely debunked.
Watson who gained fame and a sizable bank account from her starring role in the “Harry Potter” film series, made the announcement that she was leaving Brown University on her Web site this morning. “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,” she wrote. “I’ve decided to take a bit of time off to completely finish my work on Harry Potter (the last one comes out this summer) and to focus on my other professional and acting projects. “I will still be working towards my degree… it’s just going to take me a semester or two longer than I thought.”
While her desire for a higher education is commendable, she burns the student who was denied admission because of her, not once, but twice. University officials should also be chagrined. They bend over backward to attract celebrity students, much like the try to recruit top athletes.
Whether they graduate or not often seems immaterial. The university reaped tons of publicity when Watson chose Brown over other Ivy League schools.With only so many freshman admission slots available, however, every celebrity accepted means some otherwise worthy student gets a rejection letter.
Every so often, a Hollywood celebrity enrolls in a high-profile school with similar results.
Jessica Biel signed on at Tufts, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen enrolled at New York University and Claire Danes attended Yale. All of them dropped out, according to Gawker. But not all celebrities lack the fortitude to get a degree. Natalie Portman graduated from Harvard. and Jodie Foster graduated from Yale to name two. But they are the exception rather than the rule.
