Emma Watson Has Thoughts on Marriage

After years out of the spotlight, Emma Watson is back—talking about why she stopped making movies and, in her first ever podcast interview, touching on everything from her rift with JK Rowling to her feelings on marriage. The societal pressure to marry is "such a violence" and "such a cruelty on people—and especially young people, and especially women," 35-year-old Watson told On Purpose's Jay Shetty in a nearly three-hour conversation that aired Wednesday, per Elle. She said pressure to marry was a way "to make them feel like they have no worth, or like they haven't succeeded yet in life."

"I'm just so happy not to be divorced yet," continued Watson. "I think that we're being pressured and forced into this thing that I believe is a kind of miracle," she added, referring to successful marriage. "I hope it happens to me. But I don't feel entitled to it." Indeed, even a year ago, "it would have been carnage" because "I just didn't know myself well enough yet," Watson said, per Business Insider. Hollywood and Disney movies teach us that couples fall in love and get married, that love is irreversible, but the hard work comes in forming a partnership with someone else, deciding how to manage conflict, and how to keep each other safe, Watson said. "I just don't think [marriage] can or should ever be forced."