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Actress Emma Watson made headlines last fall when she gave an impassioned speech to the United Nations on the important topic of gender equality.

Her efforts were greeted with the threat of a nude photo leak.

Watson, 24, revealed this disturbing turn of events in a Facebook Q&A session on Sunday, March 8, in recognition of International Women’s Day.

“After I gave my speech in September, there was a website set up threatening to release naked photographs of me with a countdown,” the British star said.

She received threats from alleged hackers, who promised to release nude photos of the petite beauty in retaliation for her pro-feminist words.

“I knew it was a hoax,” she says, for the simple reason that “I knew the pictures didn’t exist.” But in the wake of The Fappening, it was sobering.

The threat followed the epic celebrity photo leak of 2014, in which photos of Jennifer Lawrence nude and countless others made their way online.

The hack targeted female celebs almost exclusively, and raised as many questions about gender issues and misogyny as it did privacy concerns.

“The minute I stepped up and talked about women’s rights I was immediately threatened … in less than 12 hours I was receiving threats,” Watson said.

“I think that [men were] really shocked. One of my brothers was very upset. So, I think it was a wake-up call,” she said of gender issues’ importance.

“‘Oh, this is a real thing that’s really happening now. Women are receiving threats in all sorts of different forms, that was just one specific one.'”

“It’s funny because people went, ‘Oh, she’s going to be disheartened by this,'” the actress added, noting the irony of that collective response.

“If anything, it made me so much more determined. I was just raging. It made me so angry that I was just like, ‘This is why I have to be doing this!'”

After a slew of women distanced themselves from the feminist label, Watson was one of the first and most vocal to align herself completely with it.

“I think people associate it with hate – with man-hate – and that’s really negative. I don’t think that’s what feminism is about at all,” she explained.

“I think it’s something incredibly positive… I’m aware of a lot more male feminists now than I was a few years ago, and it’s really been heartening.”

“People have come back to what the actual definition means, which is ‘equality politically, culturally, socially, economically.’ That’s it. That simple.”