They always seemed like an unlikely couple and it may be revealed that the romance between Harry Potter actress Emma Watson and Brandon Green, the son of the former King of the High Street Sir Philip Green, is over.
Sources indicate that they broke up some time after Christmas – after a ‘serious’ romance that lasted about 18 months.
Both met each other’s parents and there were vacations including a romantic break in Venice.
Green, 29, had a reputation as a party buff and previously dated a number of models. He was once caught patting Kate Moss on the buttocks while vacationing in St. Barths.
Raised in the tax haven of Monaco, his Bar Mitzvah, at the legendary Hotel Du Cap, includes performances by Beyonce and Andrea Bocelli.
The romance between Harry Potter actress Emma Watson and Brandon Green (pictured together vacationing in Venice, Italy last August) is over
Emma Watson and Brandon Green held hands in Venice on a getaway last August
Brandon Green (right) is the son of the former King of the High Street Sir Philip Green (left)
More recently, however, he has shown an interest in good works, including biodiversity and the oceans, and has been described by friends as “polite and smart.”
With a startup technology investment firm, Brendan seemed like a good match for Watson, a serious woman who attended Brown University post-Potter.
She now harbors ambitions behind the camera, having set up two film production companies and directed herself in a Prada commercial.
She has also developed a grape-based gin, Renais – some of the grapes for it come from her father’s vineyard in France.
So what went wrong? It seems that Emma, 33, had some kind of epiphany related to her “Saturn return” and decided she wanted out of the relationship.
In an Instagram post on April 15 to mark her birthday, she wrote, “This is 33. Holy moly. Before I was 29 I hadn’t even heard of a Saturn Return as a concept. Let’s just say I’m well known now.’
She went on to write about how she’d re-evaluated her life and what she’d done with it, learning to surf “poorly,” riding horses, doing “a lot of therapy,” and “saying goodbye to my grandma and grandpa.”
She added, “I cut my thumbnail off both hands trying to cook for myself and then could only do things with one hand for months,” she wrote.
‘I felt very sad and disappointed about many things. I’ve learned more about love and being a woman… It’s taken me three years, but I’ve finally come up with a daily practice and can even keep it up for more than a few days at a time.’
On the subject of “love and being a woman,” she did not confide in the breakup with Brandon, which she kept private, but the news has now leaked.
In a similar vein, singer Adele said on the release of her album 30 that her return to Saturn coincided with the end of her marriage to charity boss Simon Konecki.
She told Vogue, “I’ve made my return to Saturn. It’s where I lost the plot. When it comes, it can turn your life upside down. It wakes you up a bit: Who am I? What do I want to do? What really makes me happy? All those things.’
A return to Saturn refers to the time when the planet Saturn returns to the position it was in when you were born.
Astrologers say it signifies the end of one life cycle and the start of the next, and it happens around ages 29, 58 and 84, bringing with it “monumental shifts” in lifestyle.
The first signs of trouble came in March when a fellow concertgoer at a Taylor Swift performance in Las Vegas claimed to have seen her in the audience — with ex-boyfriend Brendan Wallace, a tech brother.
However, it is not clear if he handcuffed her again.
Watson commented during a period of being single that she was a “self-partner,” but by more conventional standards she was a serial monogamist—and serially unlucky in love.
Emma Watson at last year’s BAFTAs at London’s Royal Albert Hall
Brandon helps Emma Watson onto a taxi boat on their romantic getaway in Venice
Emma Watson and Brandon Green had met their parents and there were vacations including a romantic break in Venice (pictured)
An early friend was rugby player Tom Ducker. He was followed by a more serious romance with fellow Oxford University students Will Adamowicz and Matt Janney.
She has dated three young tech millionaires, most notably the entrepreneur William ‘Mack’ Knight. They split in late 2017 after a two-year romance. On the rebound, she was in a six-month love affair with handsome Glee actor Chord Overstreet. They broke up in the summer of 2018.
She was then spotted sharing cocktails with tech CEO Brendan Wallace, the co-founder of a venture capital fund she may or may not be dating again.
By the summer of 2019, she had moved on to another tech millionaire, Brendan Iribe, CEO of Oculus. He was followed by businessman Leo Robinton, with whom she spent two years.
In an interview, she said, “The boyfriends or partners I’ve had generally make me feel really nurtured. They built me up,” she said.
Many may consider Watson very lucky – thanks to being cast as a child in the Potter films, she has more money than she could possibly need and a thriving acting career. But actually, she has rather mixed feelings about the fame it has brought her and has stopped acting more than once.
She was cast in the Harry Potter movies at the age of nine, after being found through the theater club she attended. She didn’t finish filming the last Potter until she was 20 years old, in June 2010.
Sources who remember her from the Potter days say the influence of her lawyer father Chris was paramount, even though she lived with her mother in Oxfordshire.
Emma Watson (right) has dated three young tech millionaires, the main entrepreneur being William ‘Mack’ Knight (left). They split in late 2017 after a two-year romance
Emma Watson dated businessman Leo Robinton for two years (pictured together in Los Angeles in May 2021).
The experience of growing up on Potter was so oppressive and so stressful that she questioned whether she should continue acting. She felt physically ill when she discovered how much money she had made from the Potter films. She also seriously considered not renewing her contract to complete the films.
When the cast and crew held a wrap party at Harry’s Bar after filming the last set of reshoots around Christmas 2010, she didn’t come.
She said in 2017, “It’s something I’ve really struggled with. I went back and questioned my parents. When I was younger I just did it. I just acted, it was just there.
“I found out that this fame thing got to a point of no return. I felt if this was something I was ever going to get rid of, it was now or never.”
After Potter, movies were generally low-key, such as The Circle, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The Bling Ring. It is said that she turned down the role of La La Land, which earned Emma Stone an Oscar.
Her latest film was Little Women released in 2019 and as her recently established film companies show, her aspirations are now on the other side of the camera. As she recently said, “I’ve often thought, I’m so wrong for this job because I’m too serious.”
You can see how Brandon Green, who grew up in Monte Carlo and enjoyed a carefree life of private jets, penthouses and bikini models, may just not have been quite deep enough for this introspective star.
But if a person who has everything meets another person who also has everything, they may just have nothing to offer each other.