Oh to be rich and famous. And only 18. Emma Watson, one of the young stars of the Harry Potter movie franchise, has just signed a $6 million deal to be the new face of Chanel, replacing Keira Knightley – either because she’s aging away at 23, or she’s become so thin that her form no longer shows up on television screens. Problematic either way.

The 18-year-old actress has signed a two-year contract worth £3million with the French fashion house to promote the brand [Chanel fragrance Coco Mademoiselle.]. Miss Watson, who became a household name in the films based on JK Rowling’s books, has signed up with leading model agency Storm, which is thought to have secured her first major campaign.

It is understood that she will replace Keira Knightley, 23, whose contract with Coco Mademoiselle ends this summer. Sources said Chanel is creating a new role for Miss Knightley who, in her latest advert, poses provocatively with just a bowler hat covering her modesty.

A source said Miss Watson’s appointment will be announced next month. ‘Emma has been excitedly telling friends that she is going to be taking over from Keira. Emma has been slowly integrated into the Chanel brand. They have been dressing her for film premieres and parties over recent months to see if she is the right fit. Once it became clear she is growing into a beautiful young woman and wears the Chanel brand so elegantly, they had to sign her up. Chanel realises it is important to target a young audience.’

[From the Daily Mail]

Watson is certainly a lovely girl, and brings with her a younger fan base than other Chanel models like Nicole Kidman, and maybe even a bit younger that Keira Knightley’s fans. It’s good that Chanel isn’t actually kicking Knightley to the curb. Hopefully that’s not a bunch of PR bull to make them sound good. Chanel is obviously one of the classiest brands out there. They must not have paid too much attention to Watson’s drunken behavior on her 18th birthday.

Here’s Emma Watson leaving Automat restaurant in London on April 19th. Images thanks to WENN.

Nothing says classy like wearing your best semi-sheer undies to your 18th birthday party and making sure your friends see you lovely lingerie when your skirt rides up just a little higher than it naturally would if you weren’t edging it up. And by friends I mean the 15 paparazzi crouching on their knees on the curb next to your car.

Emma Watson is now free to spend some of that $20 million she made making the first five Harry Potter films playing smart muggle-born witch Hermione Granger. She celebrated not by hitting the designer boutiques and splurging on brand name frivolities but by exerting her God-given right as a young female celebrity to get quick publicity by flashing her kitty and making it look like an accident. She did try and half-assed block the shots she probably planned for by pushing her Chanel purse down to little effect. But to my cynical eye it still looks like a staged photo op.

A celebrity crotch flash is like making a wish on a monkey’s paw. You get the fame you wished for, but it’s for all the wrong reasons. Lohan makes headlines as a slutty lush, Paris Hilton is a crazy pet hoarder who spent time in jail, and Britney is certifiable. Watson may think she’s doing it all classy-like, and in her champagne addled mind it’s just a minor transgression, but there’s no escaping the negative mojo that’s about to come down on her. (Unless she disapparates quickly to the country, and you know that’s not going to happen.)

Of course it’s possible this is an accident, but I’m still voting “no”

Emma Watson is shown outside Mayfair’s Automat Club and Restaurant at 4:00 on the morning after her birthday, thanks to Splash News and WENN.

Update: The consensus is that these photos are intrusive and that it was an accidental upskirt, and not the staged type shown by Lindsay, Paris et al. Our apologies to Watson.

Daniel Radcliffe recently split from his girlfriend, Equus co-star Lauren O’Toole, but he has a new squeeze, possibly the only one that would make Harry Potter fans happy.

The onlooker said: “They arrived quite late at the pub - about 10pm - and sat outside, using each other’s bodies for warmth.

“Emma, who was wearing a black top and matching pashmina, kept looking over her shoulder nervously as if she didn’t wanted to be recognised. When people started to notice the couple and began pointing, she wrapped her scarf around her head so only her eyes were peeping out.

“Daniel found her new look hysterical and started laughing. Throughout the night, in fact, he just kept giggling like a love-struck teen.

“The pair seemed totally absorbed in one another’s company, though - they were chatting and joking easily until just before closing time.

“They then left the pub, heads together and whispering, and headed in the direction of Daniel’s home nearby.”

[From The Mirror]

Emma recently split from Razorlight’s Johnny Borrell, also known as Kirsten Dunst’s ex, after her parents expressed disapproval at the match. Telling your 17-year-old daughter that you don’t like her boyfriend is probably her cue to decide she’s madly in love with him, just to drive her parents crazy.

Given that Hermoine and Harry - whoops, I mean Emma and Daniel - are both newly single, this “date” is probably just friends getting together as friends. This is what single people do. They might not even have realized that it was Valentine’s Day.

On a side note, Johnny Borrell was recently kicked out of a hotel room for throwing cushions. He’s obviously still in rock star training - doesn’t he know it’s throwing televisions out of the window, and putting a Rolls Royce in the swimming pool?

Picture note by Celebitchy: Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, are shown at their Hand, Foot and Wand print ceremony at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on 7/10/07, thanks to Splash News.

Rupert Grint, Danielle Radcliffe and Emma Watson, the young stars of the wildly popular Harry Potter movies, were immortalized in a foot, hand and wandprint ceremony at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood yesterday.

In a recent interview in Details magazine, Radcliffe said he has no desire to date an actress and that he thinks that displays of immense wealth are obnoxious:

“I think it would be very hard to go out with an actress, because they’re mad. Some actresses are just insane. I’ve never worked with a nasty actress—they’re all absolutely delightful. But completely barking…”

“Even when I was very young and before any of this had happened, I remember being repulsed by ostentatious displays of wealth,” he says.

“People who have car collections—I never understood that. I always thought that was unnecessary. It’s not beautiful, it’s not creative. It’s just showing how much money you’ve got.”

[From Details.com]

In the interview, Radcliffe says he had a “brief heart attack” when he heard via text message that JK Rowling was planning an eighth Harry Potter book. He was relieved to find that she just planned to contribute to a charity book on magic. He will receive $50 million for playing Harry in the screen versions of the next two installments of the series, but fears being typecast and wants to step away from the role at some point.

The fear of being Harry Potter forever might explain his naked turn on the stage as a mentally disturbed stable hand in Equus. It might also provide motivation for the rather odd pictures of Radcliffe that accompanied his Details interview, in which he wears in a leather vest and blue contact lenses. The Daily Mail published this picture of his costar Emma Watson reacting as she saw the pictures for the first time. It’s going to take a lot more than a wardrobe change - or disrobing - for Radcliffe to escape Harry. With that kind of cash attached to the role, he may as well accept his fate. And next weekend we will learn what that fate will be.

Thanks to WENN for these pictures.

Harry Potter mania is about to hit. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is out in US theaters on Wednesday while the last book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is out next Saturday, July 21.

Advance reviews for the film are overwhelmingly positive, with a current 87% aggregate critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Several critics have written that it’s the best Harry Potter film yet, and that it’s darker and scarier than its four predecessors.

As for the book, I have to admit I’ve read all the other Harry Potter titles and although I won’t be waiting in line for it I’ll be sure to snatch up a copy within a few days of its release.

Diehard Harry Potter fans are planning a media blackout next weekend so that the end is not spoiled for them. JK Rowling has said that two characters will die at the end of the series, and a lot of speculation has surrounded her claims. She said she was crying while writing the end of the book and that she was devastated to end it. Fans want to know who dies, but not until they get a chance to read the whole book first.

Now, as the July 21 release of the seventh and final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, approaches, fans who have waited the better part of a decade to find out the ultimate fate of Harry, his friends and his nemeses are taking no chances.

But how far do they have to go? Must they close their eyes, cover their ears and scream, “LALALALA?”

Pretty much. In fact, if you want to get in touch with a rabid Harry Potter fan on the weekend of July 21-22, you might be out of luck.

Readers are planning media blackouts — no computers, no cell phones, no TV, no radio. And if that’s not enough, they’re threatening to get physical.

“I’ll beat the crap out of the person who spoils it for me,” Pritthish Chakraborty wrote in an e-mail. Chakraborty, 17, who runs a fan Web site, Harry Potter Beyond, in his native Bangladesh, was spoiled two years ago when a “friend” sent a picture message to his cell phone of the page describing Dumbledore’s death.

Many fans don’t want to give up the excitement and camaraderie of a midnight release party, but they know they’re putting themselves at risk.

“We advise people — I know this is terrible — to bring headphones to the book release and put them on as they leave the store so they’re not subject to the idiot across the street screaming the end to them,” said Melissa Anelli, a webmaster of the Leaky Cauldron, a prominent Harry Potter fan site.

[AP Article from the Houston Chronicle thanks to Viv for e-mailing it.]

In 2005 some fans were upset to have the end of the last book yelled out at them as they left bookstores early in the morning of the release.

I’m the kind of person that can’t resist looking up spoilers, but that wouldn’t keep me from reading the book as all the fun is getting there.

Here are pictures from the LA premiere of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix including Daniel Radcliffe. Emma Watson with brother, Alex, Rupert Grint, Imelda Staunton, Melissa Joan Hart, and Masi Oka. Rupert Grint is wearing a cute shirt with a picture of Harry on it.

Thanks to PRPhotos for these pics.