Emma Watson has opened up for the first time about her six-month driving ban in the UK, expressing how it felt for her 'shame' to be so publicly aired.

In July, High Wycombe Magistrates' Court notified the Harry Potter star that she had been caught driving at 38mph in a strict 30mph zone in Oxford.

Watson, who already had nine points on her license, was told that her license would be suspended for six months and fined a total of £1,044.

The 35-year-old student did not attend the brief five-minute hearing, as reported by the BBC at the time.

Watson has now broken her silence on the matter, revealing she has traded her car for a bicycle.

Emma Watson admitted she's now using a bicycle after her driving ban (Jay Shetty On Purpose podcast)

She shared this on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast, which was released on Wednesday (24 September).

“I recently started riding a bicycle,” she explained. “I began before my driving ban, but now it’s particularly convenient that I also cycle for this reason.”

When asked how it felt for the driving ban to become ‘mainstream’ news, the Hermione Granger favorite confessed: “Oh my God, I was receiving calls, like it’s on the BBC, it’s on international worldwide news.”

She added: “I felt like my shame was everywhere.”

Watson has turned her situation into something positive, telling 38-year-old Shetty that she’s connected with others who have also lost their driver's licenses.

“In a funny way, the sweetest outcome was getting so many messages from people saying, ‘It happened to me too. I understand. It’s awful. It sucks',” she shared. “Which was kind of nice in a way. ‘Do you need a lift?’ I was like, actually, yes.”

The Little Women actress, who has been pursuing a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing at Oxford University since 2023, mentioned that her speeding ticket was due to her ‘awkward transition’ from celebrity life.

The actress also admitted working on Harry Potter altered her view of Hollywood 'friendships' (Warner Bros.)

She noted that she’d recently gone from driving only on weekends or holidays to ‘driving [herself] all the time’ due to her academic endeavors.

“And yeah, I did not have the experience or skills, clearly, which I now will and do.”

Watson also described how ‘humbling’ it was to go from performing ‘complex tasks’ on film sets to struggling with ‘pretty basic life things’, such as adhering to a speed limit.

“I’m like, ‘Okay, Emma, you seem unable to remember keys, unable to keep yourself at 30 miles an hour in a 30-mile speed limit. You don’t seem able to do some pretty basic life things',” she joked.

“I had days where I just wanted to tell people, ‘I used to be good at things, OK? I used to be really good at things! I know it doesn’t look like that right now, but I used to.”

The 35-year-old's interview is available to watch and listen to on YouTube now (Jay Shetty On Purpose podcast)

Following the conclusion of the eight Harry Potter films in July 2011, Watson has taken on several roles, including playing the notorious Nicki in The Bling Ring and Sam in The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Discussing her post-HP career on the On Purpose podcast, Watson admitted it had been ‘a very painful experience’.

She explained it was because she had the ‘expectation’ that she and her colleagues would be ‘lifelong friends’, similar to her relationship with Daniel Radcliffe, 36, and Rupert Grint, 37.

“I came to work looking for friendship, and that was a very painful experience for me outside of Harry Potter and in Hollywood, like bone-breakingly painful, because most people don’t come to those environments looking for friendships,” she said, holding back tears.

Watson added: “It’s so unusual to make a set of films for 12 years, and we were a community,

“We really were. And so I took that as an expectation into my other workplaces, and I just got my a** kicked. I really did.”