J.K. Rowling — the billionaire Harry Potter author who has used her money to fund the roll back of U.K. civil protections for transgender people — has written a bitter screed against Emma Watson, the former child actor who portrayed girl wizard Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film adaptations, after Watson

Watson recently acknowledged her complicated feelings on the podcast On Purpose after host Jay Shetty asked how she felt about Rowling’s statement that she’d “never forgive” Watson and her Harry Potter co-stars for their pro-LGBTQ+ comments and that the actors ruined the movies for her.

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JK Rowling says to photograph women in toilets just in case they’re transgender

Watson, who is now 35-years-old but appeared in the films from ages 10 to 21, replied, “There’s just no world in which I could ever cancel her out or cancel that out for anything. I just don’t know what to do other than hold these two seemingly incompatible things together at the same time and just hope maybe one day they could resolve or cojoin themselves and maybe accept that they never will, but that they can both be true.”

“And I can love her, I can know she loved me, I can be grateful to her, I can know the things she said were true, and that can be this whole other thing,” Watson continued, “and my job feels like, to just hold all of it. But the bigger thing is just, what she’s done will never be taken away from me.”

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Watson also said that, despite her past statements against Rowling’s transphobia, she felt reluctance addressing it now in an era where trans rights have been so contentious in the United Kingdom and the United States.

EMMA WATSON on JK ROWLING
“I can love her. I can know she love me.
I can be grateful to her.” pic.twitter.com/IsheVBw8km

— WENSLEY (@WesGarbell) September 24, 2025

In response to Watson’s words, Rowling wrote in a Monday post on the social media platform X, “Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology…. However, Emma and Dan[iel Radcliffe, who played the male lead in the Harry Potter films] 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.”

Rowling said that Watson sent her a small message in the past after speaking publicly against Rowling’s anti-trans views — “back when the death, rape and torture threats against me were at their peak,” Rowling wrote. Watson’s note simply said, “I’m so sorry for what you’re going through.”

“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,” Rowling continued.

“Emma has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is,” Rowling added, claiming that Watson will never need a women’s homeless shelter, state-run rape crisis center, mixed sex public hospital ward, mixed-sex changing room in a community pool, or “a prison cell with a [transgender] rapist,” presumably all places where, according to Rowling, trans women present a threat to cisgender women. (In reality, numerous studies have shown that trans people are harmed more often by cis people than vice-versa.)

“I wasn’t a multimillionaire at 14,” Rowling continued. “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.”

Rowling then said that while she once felt a protectiveness over the child stars that led the film adaptations of her works, “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.”

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… https://t.co/c0pz19P7jc

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 29, 2025

Watson stood up for transgender equality in a 2020 Vogue interview, saying that transphobia denies the humanity of trans people.

“Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are,” she wrote in a June 2020 tweet. “I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you and love you for who you are.”

J.K. Rowling uses her fortune to fund anti-trans legal attacks

Rowling has used her vast wealth, mostly accumulated through the success of her Harry Potter franchise and its many multimedia spinoffs, to personally fund legal cases aimed at diminishing rights and protections for transgender women in the U.K. and Ireland.

A spokesperson for Rowling confirmed that the author’s JK Rowling Women’s Fund (JKRWF) has been quietly operating since late 2024, managing “her ongoing financial support for legal cases involving women’s and girls’ sex-based rights.”

The fund is just her latest effort to end trans women’s rights in the U.K. In February 2024, she pledged a £70,000 (about $89,000) to For Women Scotland (FWS), the anti-trans organization behind the legal challenge that resulted in the U.K. Supreme Court’s ruling that excluded trans women from the country’s law prohibiting sex-based discrimination.

HBO is currently producing a Harry Potter reboot to which Rowling will serve as an executive producer. Casey Bloys, HBO’s gay CEO, has repeatedly dismissed concerns about her toxic transphobia, saying that Rowling is “entitled” to “her personal political views.”

According to The Guardian, the Harry Potter franchise is worth an estimated $25 billion. In a May 28 Bluesky post, British barrister Jolyon Maugham wondered how much of Rowling’s fortune would be spent “oppressing a minoritised group she doesn’t like.”

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