Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has become a highly divisive figure since her feelings on gender and the trans community were made public some years ago, and the writer has continued to further alienate herself from her once loyal fanbase with what many perceive to be anti-trans rhetoric.
Rowling, who has been dubbed She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in some Harry Potter fan circles, has always stuck to her guns and doubled-down on her views, often at the expense of the relationships she had built with several main cast members from the Harry Potter movies.
Following a 2024 independent review of gender identity services for children and young people, which noted that health care providers and patients “have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress,” Rowling hit back at the response to these findings, which she had taken as vindication of her views.
"If I sound angry, it's because I'm bloody angry," she said in one of her X posts. "I read Cass this morning and my anger's been mounting all day. Kids have been irreversibly harmed, and thousands are complicit, not just medics, but the celebrity mouthpieces, unquestioning media and cynical corporations."
Those "celebrity mouthpieces" included Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, who had made their positions on the transgender debate very clear in the past.
“Just waiting for Dan and Emma to give you a very public apology … safe in the knowledge that you will forgive them,” one of Rowling's followers wrote in the replies. “Not safe, I’m afraid," she responded. "Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces.”
Watson spoke for the first time about her complicated relationship with Rowling during a sit-down interview on the On Purpose With Jay Shetty podcast.
“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 had personal experiences with,” Watson said. “I will never believe that one negates the other and that my experience of that person, I don’t get to keep and cherish. To come back to our earlier thing — I just don’t think these things are either or. I think it’s my deepest wish that 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.”
Watson added, “I think the thing I’m most upset about is that a conversation was never made possible.” When Shetty asked if she remained open to having that dialogue, Watson replied, “Yeah, and I always will. I believe in that. I believe in that completely.”
Watson took a hiatus from acting a number of years ago, and it doesn't sound like she's in any rush to return, noting that she is “maybe the happiest and healthiest [she’s] ever been” because of the break.
“The bigger component than the actual job itself is the promotion and selling of that piece of work, this piece of art. The balance of that can get quite thrown off,” Watson said of her decision to step away from acting. “I think I’ll be honest and straight-forward, and say: I do not miss selling things. I found that to be quite soul-destroying. But I do very much miss using my skill-set, and I very much miss the art. I just found I got to do so little of the bit that I actually enjoyed.”