JK Rowling rejects Emma Watson's outstretched hand: "She ignores how ignorant she is."
The actress had declared that, despite their opposing positions on the trans issue, she still loved him.
BarcelonaActress Emma Watson, known for her role as Hermione in the Harry Potter films, went looking for wool and came away shorn. In her latest interview, she explained that she still loved JK Rowling, the author of the books on which the films are based, despite the bitter public clashes they have had regarding the trans community. But if the actress hoped to soften her relationship with the novelist, the result has been the opposite. In a lengthy post about X, Rowling harshly criticized her and called her a spoiled brat, accustomed to wealth from a young age. "Like so many people who have never experienced adult life without the cushion of fame and money, Emma has so little experience of real life that she is ignorant of the ignorant," she summarized.
The author also distrusted Watson's supposedly good intentions, which she attributed to a change in public opinion: "She's realized that condemning me by going for my jugular is no longer as fashionable as it used to be." The writer repeatedly criticizes her for having gotten her platform thanks to her. "I wasn't a multimillionaire at fourteen. I was living in poverty, writing the book that made Emma famous. That's why I understand from my own experience how the disregard for women's rights, in which Emma has enthusiastically participated, affects women and girls who don't have her privileges."
The message accused her of having incited a witch hunt against her: "Adults cannot expect to support an activist movement that regularly calls for the murder of a friend, and then claim the love of this friend, as if the friend were actually my mother and my mother. And much of discussing her feelings about me in public, but I have the same right and I have finally decided to exercise it," she concluded.
Watson is not the only actress in the Harry Potter universe who has criticized her for positions considered transphobic. So has Daniel Radcliffe, who took on the lead role. Rowling complains that both have set themselves up as "spokespeople" de facto of the world I created," referring to the times they have pointed out the contrast between the writer's positions when she denies that trans women are women and books that in theory advocate positive and inclusive values.