Emma Watson looked carefree when she was pictured with a handsome male companion in Pisa on Friday after denying she is engaged to her boyfriend Kieran Brown.

The actress, 35, looked relaxed and happy as they walked past the leaning tower of Pisa with the man, just days after Harry Potter author JK Rowling’s decision to accuse her of being ‘ignorant of how ignorant she is’ regarding trans rights.

Emma was wearing a Frame X Ritz jumper with leggings and a crossbody bag on her day out, while her companion stood close by.

Her phd student boyfriend Kieran was not with her on the day.

The couple met while as she studied her part-time master’s degree in creative writing at Oxford University and they were first photographed together in July 2024.

Emma said on the The Jay Shetty Podcast last month that she isn’t engaged and will not be pressured into exchanging vows because it’s seen as the conventional thing to do.

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Emma Watson looked carefree on holiday with a handsome male companion in Pisa on Friday – as she brushed off JK Rowling’s recent comments about her ‘ignorance’ regarding trans rights

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Emma was wearing a Frame X Ritz jumper with leggings and a crossbody bag as she walked along with the man, just days after she denied she was engaged to her boyfriend Kieran Brown

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Emma recently described the pressure to marry as a ‘violence and cruelty’ against women

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Emma’s boyfriend is Kieran Brown (pictured with the actress), whom she met while studying for her part-time master’s degree in creative writing at Oxford University

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She was pictured wearing this ring at the Miu Miu show in Paris Fashion Week on October 6 but the 22 petal designed flower ring was actually a gift from her friends

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Emma, who has described the pressure to marry as a ‘violence and cruelty’ against women, wore an impressive, vintage-style ring on her engagement finger while attending a Miu Miu catwalk show in the French capital which caused people to question if she was engaged.

But Emma said: ‘I guess having gone through this odyssey, which has been the last seven years, it was like, okay, I feel like I’ve got to a place, and this will continue forever, where I want to celebrate where I ended up after I left land, it felt like.

‘I did a ritual with, I guess just a day of celebrating with my friends and chosen family. They each bought me this ring, which has 22 petals on it, and each of them bought one.’

She added: ‘I’ve just never owned anything so valuable in my life because to me, it represents the life that I’ve built, which was the one that I really wanted, which was one that was made up of community and my roots and faith and trust.

‘In some funny way, it signals to me that even though I have no signs of my success, save for this crazy one-woman play I’ve written, I don’t even have my degree yet, it signals to me that for me, I achieved what I wanted to achieve for myself.’

Emma added: ‘I’m just so happy not to be divorced yet. That sounds like a really negative answer, but I think that we’re being pressured and forced into this thing that I believe is a miracle.

‘I might never be worthy of it. I hope it happens to me, but I don’t feel entitled to it. It will either be part of my purpose here and my destiny, or it won’t.

‘I think the way we treat it as though, Well, why haven’t you? This is something that has to happen in this certain time span and at this certain age in this way. It’s the least romantic thing I can possibly think of.’

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She said: ‘I think it’s such a violence and it’s such a cruelty on people, and especially young people, I think, and especially women, to make them feel like they have no worth or like they haven’t succeeded yet in life’

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During the same interview, the actress said her public support for trans rights did not mean she had turned against Harry Potter author JK Rowling

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She said: ‘I really don’t believe that by having had that experience and holding the love and support and views that I have, mean that I can’t and don’t treasure Jo and the person that I, that I had personal experiences with’

‘Truly, if I had tried to get married any point, basically before about a year ago, it would have been carnage. I just didn’t know myself well enough yet. I didn’t have a clear enough idea of what my purpose, my vision, how I was going to be of service.

‘I didn’t know where I really felt like I needed to be. I think I have some of those answers now. So when I meet someone, I can say “Hi, I’m Emma. This is what I care about”.’

She added: ‘I think it’s such a violence and it’s such a cruelty on people, and especially young people, I think, and especially women, to make them feel like they have no worth or like they haven’t succeeded yet in life because they haven’t forced to its culmination, something that I just don’t think can or should ever be forced.

‘It’s something that, honestly, I feel like I’ve had to earn, I’ve had to work for to be in a place where I feel like I can look someone in the eye and be able to tell them who I am and to have some idea – and it will change and grow – of what I want and what I’m here to do.’

During the same interview, the actress said her public support for trans rights did not mean she had turned against Harry Potter author JK Rowling, 60.

She said: ‘I really don’t believe that by having had that experience and holding the love and support and views that I have, mean that I can’t and don’t treasure Jo and the person that I, that I had personal experiences with.’

But JK issued an unprecedented condemnation of Emma by accusing her of being ‘ignorant of how ignorant she is’.

She said the actress’s public criticism of her gender-critical stance had ‘poured more petrol on the flames’ of the abuse she had suffered.

She also dismissed Ms Watson’s recent claim that she ‘still treasures’ her by accusing her of ‘cosying up’ to a movement that ‘regularly calls for a friend’s assassination’.

Rowling has previously vowed to ‘never forgive’ Ms Watson or her Harry Potter co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint for having ‘cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights’.

But she has never previously made such a personal criticism of the woman she made famous.

Just a fortnight ago, Rowling said the trio had ‘every right to embrace gender identity ideology’ but attacked them for using their links to Harry Potter to serve as ‘de facto spokespeople’ for the ‘world I created’.

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JK Rowling with Emma at the world premiere of Deathly Hallows in 2011

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JK said she had long felt ‘protective’ over the former child star

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Emma and Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban

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JK posted a long statement on X last month

She then focused her fire on Emma by suggesting her views on trans rights were due to her lack of experience of ‘real life’.

The actress recently blamed her driving ban on being a movie star from a young age, saying it had left her ‘unable to do some pretty basic life things’.

Rowling raged: ‘I wasn’t a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous.

‘I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women’s rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges.’

She went on to claim that Ms Watson’s recent claim that she still ‘treasures’ her was a cynical attempt to shift her stance after realising ‘full-throated condemnation of me is not as fashionable as it once was’.