Over the years, JK Rowling has completely lost the plot. Her Harry Potter books became a global franchise and turned her into a billionaire. Instead of just living a life of quiet luxury and joy, Rowling turned into a bitter, miserable person who rants online about her pet cause: how much she hates transgender people, and how anyone who supports trans rights is dead to her. In recent years, Daniel Radcliffe (the original Harry Potter) has stood up to Rowling publicly. He’s spoken out about his support for LGBTQ rights, and he’s spoken of his sadness for what Rowling has become.

Emma Watson has also referenced Rowling’s transition into a bigoted, hateful lunatic over the years, but Emma has never gone as hard as DanRad. Last week, Emma appeared on The Jay Shetty Podcast, and Shetty asked Emma about Rowling’s previous comment about how Emma and DanRad can “save their apologies.” This is what Emma said last week:

“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. I will never believe that one negates the other and that my experience of that person, I don’t get to keep and cherish I to come back to our earlier thing. Like I just don’t think these things are either or.”

“I think it’s my deepest wish that I, I hope people who don’t agree with my opinion will love me and I hope I can keep loving people who I don’t necessarily share the same opinion with. I guess where I’ve landed it, it’s not so much what we say or what we believe, it’s how we say it. I just see this world right now where we seem to giving permission to this throwing out of people, or that people are disposable. I will always think that’s wrong.”

“I just believe that no one is disposable. And everyone as far as possible, whatever the conversation is, should and can be treated with, at the very least, dignity and respect.”

[From People]

Emma spoke with a great deal of nuance – she doesn’t want to throw out her positive experiences within the Potter franchise, nor does she want to forget the positive interactions she’s had with Rowling over the years. She doesn’t think Rowling is disposable, nor does she believe that Rowling should see other people as disposable. Honestly, Emma was getting criticized for not going harder on Rowling, for speaking about her “love” for a woman who has actively harmed marginalized communities. But Rowling apparently thinks Emma went too far, because this was her reaction:

On Monday, Rowling clarified her stance further. The writer, again, took to X and said: “I’m not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should hold these days. Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn’t want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them.”

“However,” she continued, “Emma and Dan [Radcliffe] in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right — nay, obligation — to critique me and my views in public. She said the pair have continued to “assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created,” years after Harry Potter drew to a close.

“When you’ve known people since they were ten years old it’s hard to shake a certain protectiveness,” said Rowling, who explained it wasn’t until quite recently that she’d managed to “throw off the memory of children who needed to be gently coaxed through their dialogue in a big scary film studio.”

Rowling went on to say that over the years she has “repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically.” At the height of “death, rape and torture threats” thrown at Rowling, she added, “Emma asked someone to pass on a handwritten note from her to me, which contained the single sentence, ‘I’m so sorry for what you’re going through’.” The author caveated this statement with the claim that Watson has her phone number.

Later on in the post, Rowling also said Watson “has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is […] I wasn’t a multimillionaire at fourteen,” she continued. “I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous.”

“She’ll never need a homeless shelter,” said the author about the Little Women star, who went on to defend her anti-trans beliefs. “She’s never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I’d be astounded if she’s been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her ‘public bathroom’ is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council-run swimming pool?”

The post ended with: “The greatest irony here is that, had Emma not decided in her most recent interview to declare that she loves and treasures me — a change of tack I suspect she’s adopted because she’s noticed full-throated condemnation of me is no longer quite as fashionable as it was — I might never have been this honest.”

Said Rowling: “Emma is rightly free to disagree with me and indeed to discuss her feelings about me in public — but I have the same right, and I’ve finally decided to exercise it.”

[From THR]

Not just a transphobic bigot, but also a narcissist who lives inside her own ass. Emma and DanRad have never said that they feel it’s their responsibility to “critique” Rowling’s transphobia, nor have they ever claimed to be speaking for their characters or for the franchise. They have been repeatedly asked about Rowling because the adaptations of Rowling’s books made them famous, and then following the film franchise, Rowling turned into this horrendous, miserable person who obsessively thinks about other people’s genitals 24-7. It would be weird if DanRad and Emma were NOT asked about Rowling’s transition into this pitiful figure. Daniel and Emma have dealt with the Rowling Problem as best they can, and as respectfully as they can.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.