Beyonce may be the most popular singer on the planet.
Emma Watson may be the most popular young actress on the planet.
So here’s a sentence we never thought we’d write:
Beyonce and Emma Watson are engaged in a pretty intense feud. Sort of.
To be far more accurate, fans of Beyonce are engaged in a pretty intense feud with Watson, although even this statement is not entirely fair.
Fans of Beyonce are simply angry at the Beauty and the Beast star. She hasn’t said a negative word in response to their criticism.
Said criticism stems from Watson’s recent topless spread in Vanity Fair, as Watson posed for the magazine without a bra or almost anything at all covering her boobs.
It was an unexpected move by Watson, who is not exactly someone we usually think of when it comes to risque photographs.
As you can see below, however, the picture in question is tasteful and not really all that revealing:
Still.
Because the Internet is a terrible place, many users jumped all over the beloved British star, claiming she can’t say in one interview that she’s a feminist, as she’s done often…
… and then turn around the next second and take her shirt off in such a public manner.
Made aware of this line of thinking, Watson lashed out at such small-minded critics.
“Feminism is about giving women choice,” she says in the video below. “Feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women with. It’s about freedom, it’s about liberation, it’s about equality.
“I really don’t know what my tits have to do with it.”
Watch Watson’s full response to this controversy below:
This brings us back to Beyonce supporters, however.
They are NOT angry at Watson for posing topless. They don’t believe this act makes her a hypocrite on its own.
However, three years ago, in a 2014 interview with Wonderland Magazine, the actress seemingly took issue with a particular brand of feminism Beyonce practiced in her 2013 visual album.
Watson said the following back when about Beyonce being all sexy and seductive for this album:
As I was watching [the videos] I felt very conflicted, I felt her message felt very conflicted in the sense that on the one hand she is putting herself in a category of a feminist, but then the camera, it felt very male, such a male voyeuristic experience of her.
Having seen these past comments, loyal members of the BeyHive fans have begun to flood Emma’s Instagram account with bee emojis and harsh words.
“Emma Watson isn’t a hypocrite b/c she’s a feminist and shows her breasts, she’s a hypocrite b/c she criticized Beyoncé for the same thing,” wrote one Beyonce fan.
Ouch.
Are these remarks fair, due to Watson’s former stance on Beyonce? Or are the situations very different?
Neither Watson nor Beyonce has issued a statement in response to this growing controversy.
Where do you stand? Do you think Watson violated some kind of feminist ethos with the photo above? Should she apologize?
Or do you agree with her take on this silly non-scandal, that women ought to be free to choose how they are portrayed?
And, come on, you can’t even see her breasts here!