J.K. Rowling Just Called Emma Watson "Ignorant." Here's What Happened.

The Full J.K. Rowling & 'Harry Potter' Cast Drama, Explained

June 2020 — J.K. Rowling Posts An Essay On Her Website

After making an initial controversial tweet on X about gender, the author posted an essay about transgender and cisgendered women.

"I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it," she says on her website. "I stand alongside the brave women and men, gay, straight and trans, who’re standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young gay kids, fragile teenagers, and women who’re reliant on and wish to retain their single sex spaces."

"I want trans women to be safe," the author (who's also a sexual assault survivor) continues. "At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman...then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside."

June 2020 — The Harry Potter Cast Responds

After the essay was published, the actors who played the famous Golden Trio — Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint — all made public statements in support of transgender women. Daniel published his own essay for the Trevor Project, Emma Watson tweeted, and Rupert Grint released a statement. Emma Watson also went viral for saying she was presenting at the BAFTAs on behalf of "all the witches."

Other actors like Robbie Coltrane and Ralph Fiennes criticized the extent of the hate Rowling received.

April 2024 — J.K. Rowling Responds To A Fan's Comment

After a follower admitted they were waiting for Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe to apologize to the author, Rowling tweeted, "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."

April 2024 — Daniel Radcliffe Breaks His Silence

Radcliffe revealed the issue made him "really sad" in an interview with The Atlantic during his Broadway run of Merrily We Roll Along.

"I wanted to try and help people that had been negatively affected by the comments," he said. "And to say that if those are Jo’s views, then they are not the views of everybody associated with the Potter franchise."

June 2025 — Tom Felton Is Asked About His Involvement With J.K. Rowling

When Variety asked Tom Felton (who played Draco Malfoy) about J.K. Rowling's statements, the actor said he doesn't feel impacted.

“I’m not really that attuned to it," he said. “I have not seen anything bring the world together more than Potter. She’s responsible for that, so I’m incredibly grateful.”

September 2025 — Emma Watson Reveals She Still Loves J.K. Rowling, Despite Controversy

In the interview with Jay Shetty, Emma said she still loves the author. She talked about her positive memories with Rowling, but how she also believes in trans rights, and her experience holding both of those truths.

"I really don't believe that by having had [the controversy] and holding the love and support and views that I have...I can't and don't treasure Jo and the person that I had personal experiences with," she 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...I just don't think these things are either or."

"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," she continued.

Emma also revealed she doesn't "want to say anything that continues to weaponize a really toxic debate and conversation, which is why I don't comment or continue to comment."

September 2025 — J.K. Rowling Reacts To Emma Watson's Comments

After Emma Watson's comments on the podcast went viral, Rowling tweeted another statement about her stance, and her view on Emma and Daniel. Here's the full statement below:

"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."