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.”
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.”
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.
-
- J.K. Rowling attendsŐ Fantastic Beasts The Secrets of Dumbledore’ film premiere, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK,Image: 673878967, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: James Shaw/Avalon
-
- J.K. Rowling attendsŐ Fantastic Beasts The Secrets of Dumbledore’ film premiere, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK,Image: 673878994, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: James Shaw/Avalon
-
- Kering Foundation Caring For Women Dinner hosted by Anderson Cooper. Featuring: Emma Watson Where: New York, New York, United States When: 15 Sep 2022 Credit: JOHN NACION/startraksphoto.com/Cover Images
-
- Milan Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2024 – Prada – Arrivals Featuring: Emma Watson Where: Milan, Italy When: 21 Sep 2023 Credit: Abaca Press/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- 82nd Venice International Film Festival 2025 evening arrival at the dock Featuring: Emma Watson Where: Venice, Italy When: 09 Aug 2024 Credit: Francesca Vieceli/IPA/INSTARimages **UK, USA AND AUSTRALIA RIGHTS ONLY**
My stance is the same. I will never be spending money on anything HP related ever again. Never will my money be going to her. And I’m proud to say that I don’t agree with her views on the trans community and I believe she has done harm in this world.
100%.
It’s such a shame, as the books are good – not great – but they really propelled YA into the forefront and got kids excited about reading. My girls loved them and my oldest has a bunch of HP stuff, but I won’t buy anything else from it.
Same! My daughters were totally into Harry Potter and living in Orlando, embraced and spent a ton at Universal on weekends…in the past years since hitting late teens and becoming aware of who JK Rowling is, they have boycotted all of it. She has really cost that franchise a ton!
Perhaps folks would like to read the actual piece JKR wrote in response & make up their own minds. (ps. it’s not a rant) See below:
I’m seeing quite a bit of comment about this, so I want to make a couple of points.
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, Emma and Dan 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. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created.
When you’ve known people since they were ten years old it’s hard to shake a certain protectiveness. Until quite recently, I hadn’t managed to throw off the memory of children who needed to be gently coaxed through their dialogue in a big scary film studio. For the past few years, I’ve repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically, most notably on the Witch Trials of JK Rowling. Ironically, I told the producers that I didn’t want her to be hounded as the result of anything I said.
The television presenter in the attached clip highlights Emma’s ‘all witches’ speech, and in truth, that was a turning point for me, but it had a postscript that hurt far more than the speech itself. 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’ (she has my phone number). This was back when the death, rape and torture threats against me were at their peak, at a time when my personal security measures had had to be tightened considerably and I was constantly worried for my family’s safety. Emma had just publicly poured more petrol on the flames, yet thought a one line expression of concern from her would reassure me of her fundamental sympathy and kindness.
Like other people who’ve never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is. She’ll never need a homeless shelter. 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? Is she ever likely to need a state-run rape crisis centre that refuses to guarantee an all-female service? To find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who’s identified into the women’s prison?
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.
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.
Adults can’t expect to cosy up to an activist movement that regularly calls for a friend’s assassination, then assert their right to the former friend’s love, as though the friend was in fact their mother. 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.
I can see why Emma Watson has become stressed out by the promotion of acting…
I’m a little shocked by the rant. Idk why. I know she rants a lot in general, but directing it so pointedly at Emma Watson, a specific person she knows personally , is shocking to me.
Holy cow. This woman is just a spoiled, raging b!tch. The level of self-centeredness is shocking. And, you know, there are plenty of us Hight St. peons who gladly share changing rooms with women of all types. Because we’re not a-holes.
Rowling has turned into a heinous bigot. She is also clearly a pathetic and miserable person who despite her immense wealth and privilege spends her time obsessing over other people’s gender.
People like that do this because they hate themselves. All that money can’t fix the gaping hole in her soul.
Yes, she’s a horrible person who honestly has too much time on her hands it seems. The hate just drips out of her. For her to talk to this way publicly to Emma after Emma was very careful and deliberate in her wording? What a piece of trash.
And the line about Emma not being the spokesperson for the world she created – sorry, they are the spokespeople for your world that’s what happened when they were cast as the stars. People think of Emma when they think of Hermione. People think of Daniel Radcliffe as THE Harry Potter, Rupert Grint IS Ron Weasley. they are more closely associated with Harry Potter than she is for the majority of the public. She may hate that, but it is what it is.
Honestly, I think that’s part of the reason for the new show on HBO. It’s probably in all the actors contracts the they can’t talk about JK.
I think she……or someone….has said that. Its to try to wipe out Watson, radcliffe and Grint from harry potter lore.
Which, good luck? the movies are iconic. The imagery was on point, the acting was on point, the setting, the sets, everything. There’s a reason the studios are such a huge draw – because its fascinating to see how the world came to life.
I don’t think this series is going to have the same draw in any way shape or form.
god, this is fascinating, from a psychological breakdown point of view. Forgive me. But it says *so much* about the mentality of the modern UK. The place that its own residents term, “Broken Britain.” Which is actually lovely, objectively, a lovely place. The conflation of class politics with “woke ideology” is laughable. Calling it “ideology” is laughable. Being tolerant of the full spectrum of gender identity is just …declining the urge to dehumanise people who are different. It’s not tantamount to subscribing to an agenda. Being “woke” is not tantamount to imposing any “ideology” on anyone. What these people are engaged in, people like JK Rowling, and Nigel Farage, etc., is imposing *their* bitter, bigoted, self-opinionated ideology on the rest of us. This is an ideology, because it’s not optional. It’s an agenda.
One doesn’t need a prior association with JK Rowling to have the right to critique her views in public.
Thank you for this. She has taken her massive platform and used it to hurt marginalized people, giving the entire known universe the right to an opinion.
Kaiser took the words out my mouth. JK Rowling is a narcissist. As for Emma’s comments I get what she’s trying to say but it’s OK to discard terrible people. Furthermore transphobia is not an opinion it’s bigotry and she’s well within her right to condemn JK for it.
The thing is, everything she said about Emma Watson applies to her too. She’s been a millionaire/billionaire for even longer than the HP kids, and before her brief period of difficulty after her first divorce she had a perfectly nice middle class life (Exeter University for god’s sake), and in the years since she’s been feted and cosseted and protected from the ‘real world’. You know who’s poor and vulnerable? Trans kids who get disowned by their families and thrown out onto the street and end up homeless and involved in crime to try and survive because governments have withdrawn all the services that were once there to help them because of campaigners like her.
I honestly think that no one in public life should ever mention her again in relation to this. Don’t give her the satisfaction as she is a full time troll who lives for opportunities to weaponise her followers and fame against people. Dan and Emma and anyone else should tell their publicists it’s off the table and any questions about anything HP related means the interview is over. Trans rights campaigners should refuse to engage because she has nothing of substance to say, only vile insults.
I am not sure if this has been confirmed but some have posted that when she was a single mother her brother helped her out and let her live rent free as well as owning the cafe where she wrote HP.
Exactly. She was actually working part time and living off benefits at the same time while writing the book. It’s not that she couldn’t find well paid work, she could and did, but chose not to so she could write her book. Good on her to find a way to create. But let’s be clear, the whole “living in poverty” story was just a made up backstory.
Yes, Joanne is a typical toxic narcissist. Always the victim. Never satisfied.
Let’s start with the fact that Rowling is a misogynist. She didn’t start her career as Joanne but chose an androgynous leaning toward male pen name. And she did it in the 90s when women selling books for kids used their full name without issue. It was not Jane Austen time in the 1990s. But she chose to conceal her gender because of her own issues.
Her internalized misogyny has mutated toward being anti trans and the money she made coming up with great totally non racist characters like Cho Chang, the only Asian character, has permitted her to continue in her unchecked transphobia, misogyny and racism.
Also someone needs to tell her that the movies permitted her the ability to finish the series the way she wanted to. There was no guarantee the last few books would be finished but the movies, including Radcliffe and Watson, provided a larger audience and made her more money.
It is clear she is a miserable person despite all the money so let her flail until the end. She’s destroyed her own legacy in real time.
I read this piece yesterday and I couldn’t believe how thoughtful Emma was able to be and how she framed a complicated situation and expressed the huge ambiguity the cast must feel. And then Rowling‘s response was just unhinged. This woman needs something, I don’t know if it’s medication, or an intervention, but she’s lost her damn mind.
Rowling has put every single performer who’s been in this worldwide beloved story universe in the most impossible position, and yet their statements are so insightful and honestly trying to do a kind of group therapy with us all on how to deal with someone who’s flipped their wig.
I forget where I heard it, but someone commented about the deep, mass deprogramming that’s going to be necessary in the wake of what’s happened in America and around the world due to toxic rabbit holes of social media. Rowling is an interesting case because she’s insulated from what could happen if she is rejected by her community. But what will less well to do people do when they alienate everyone but their imaginary online pals?
I honestly wonder what what’s going to go on in assisted living centers and skilled nursing centers when these big grown people are there screaming and gibbering about Civil War and transgender Boogiemen.
Her memories of the time when she was filming Harry Potter can live on in her mind. Nobody can take what was probably a wonderful experience away from her, including Rowling. But I don’t understand how you can “go back” to a time when you didn’t know someone was a full-on bigot. It really requires a lot of compartmentalizing and suspension of disbelief and I guess I’m just not built like that.
“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?”
Sorry but these are the nonsensical rantings of a paranoid person. Trans people are hiding under your bed!! Sooooooo scaweeeeeeee!!!!
What a fucking loon this woman is.
It is so crazy that I really think she has mental health problems. We are assaulted by hetero men all the time. There is no hoard of perverts who go through procedures, hormone treatments, so they can attack women in changing rooms.
Also, Emma has been the target of pedos, perverts since she was a child. I am sure she knows like every woman to be scared as a woman. I remember her saying she always checks every corner of the public bathroom in case they put a secret camera to get her naked pics. She also had to fight the paps (who were all hetero men) taking pics under her skirt as soon as she turned 18.
Emma’s been through a LOT. And yeah that’s a valid reason to fear a bathroom, much more so than some paranoid delusion that a trans person is hiding in a stall, just waiting to show you their genitals or whatever.
As I wrote in another thread, we were huge HP fans in our house. … But I wish I had paid more attention to the racist and antisemitic crap in the HP books: the Gringotts bankers, the stereotypical character names (Cho Chang for the Asian female student, the Black character named Kingsley Shacklebolt) …
Rowling was telling us who she was all along: a bigot.
Notice how all the vitriol is for Emma alone, even though she mentions DanRad in passing. She’s a misogynist to the core, as well as being transphobic trash.
She is talking about Emma because Emma offered an olive branch and everyone and their dog was commenting on that and bugging her to reply. Daniel has done no such thing. And if he’s smart, he’s not going to in the future.
I’m perpetually stunned by how this person is dismantling her own legacy and can’t see it. Then again, I look at a lot of the MAGA people here and feel the same, so obviously there’s something about living inside their perspectives that I’m not getting. Emma Watson seems like such a lovely and thoughtful person, it just underscores how nuts JK is.
i mean… I remember vividly the first time I watched one of the films was with my son when he was much younger, never having been a fan myself — of the books or the films, really I was not sure *what* was the fix they were giving to the fans — being gobsmacked by the bankers clearly depicted as a sort of antisemitic cliché that might just as well have appeared in a mean-spirited Goebbels cartoon. I mean. It’s not subtle. Really. The whole Harry Potter universe struck me as…. Bizarre. And not in a relatable shared kind of way. In a frankly freakish way. I just never voiced the opinion because everyone else loved it so I assumed there was something about it that was just going over my head.
oh she’s definitely racist and antisemitic in her depiction of several characters. Cho Chang is problematic clearly, Seamus from Ireland is always blowing things up, minimal Black characters or other POC (the Indian girl is scared of a cobra? What?)
That’s why I think she’s making a mistake with this reboot. For many of her fans (including me), we read the books when we were younger (I was in early college maybe, so not super young but also not super woke, ha) and a lot of the racist and problematic imagery was easier to ignore. And then in the movies its like “yes this makes sense because its true to the source material.” But with time and maturity and society being different than it was 25 years ago – in a good way – its much easier to spot the problems. I mean it was always problematic. but I think it was easy for the issues to get lost in the worldbuilding and the plot. And the books were easy to read (which is really why they became such massive hits. Lord of the Rings they are not.)
So now that many many of her fans (like me) know better and can spot the racist imagery right off the bat – why repeat that? Why double down on that? You got away with it once, take your billions and go away.
And we’re huge Potter fans, especially of the movies. We’ve done the London studio tour, we’ve gone to Universal, we know the movies verbatim. Now we’re walking a lot of that back in our house and we are NOT watching the series.
Both Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson have been really thoughtful, nuanced, and graceful in their words about Rowling, and she’s just like “Eff that, I don’t deserve your kindness!”. Noted, Joanne!
Rowling is a really mean, bigoted person. She’s not really standing up for women. She’s manipulating women’s rights and feminism to be anti-trans. It’s not that she’s just uncomfortable or doesn’t like them, she wants them legally barred from recognition or even being safe. I don’t think what she hopes to accomplish by dragging Watson like this but Emma no longer owes her any courtesy.
I can understand feeling unsafe in a mix sex hospital ward or homeless shelter. Bu let’s be honest, cis men are statistically the danger, not trans women.
What happened to her???? (Rowling, obvs). Seriously. Why is she filled with so much vitriol and hatred for anyone who’s not a sycophant? She’s a real life Nagini who, ironically, is attributed with the quote, “He knows what you were born. Not who you are!”
I’ve given up feeling a teeny bit sorry for her – like what did she experience/endure that made her like this? – or, is she mentally ill?
Now I just think she’s a bitch.
I couldn’t believe she could react negatively to Emma’s statement, which was nuanced and extremely kind — way kinder than I am about my MAGA parents. Although I suppose if I was being interviewed for a podcast, I might be kinder, too!
Anyway, my pet theory is that Rowling deep down wishes she were a man and hates trans people for getting the thing she can’t even admit she wants. But that’s a charitable view. Probably she’s just an a-hole and money has allowed her to be an a-hole without (major) consequences.