{"id":167361,"date":"2025-09-25T04:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T04:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/167361\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T04:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T04:37:07","slug":"emma-watson-addresses-j-k-rowling-rift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/167361\/","title":{"rendered":"Emma Watson addresses J.K. Rowling rift"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Harry Potter\u00a0cast battle lines got drawn pretty quickly once J.K. Rowling started getting seriously into transphobic rhetoric circa mid-2000<\/a>, divided between those franchise actors, like Ralph Fiennes<\/a>, who voiced support for the series creator as she got ever-more-vocal about attacking trans rights and identity, and those who dared dissent. Notably, the latter camp included the series\u2019 three stars, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, who all expressed their vocal support for trans folk early and often.<\/p>\n

Rowling did not take this well, to put it lightly, making public comments suggesting she would never forgive the young performers for their statements\u2014pretty much all of which started and stopped with quotes like Watson\u2019s \u201cTrans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned\u201d\u2014and implying on social media that their presence in the Harry Potter\u00a0film franchise \u201cruins\u201d those movies for her.<\/p>\n

Watson has now addressed the rift, with\u00a0Variety\u00a0reporting<\/a> that the performer, who\u2019s been on hiatus from acting since appearing in\u00a0Little Women<\/a>\u00a0back in 2019, popped up on a podcast this week in which Rowling\u2019s comments were addressed. Appearing on\u00a0On Purpose With Jay Shetty<\/a>, Watson expressed her sadness at the idea of Rowling\u2014who she has, obviously, known since she was 11\u2014completely shutting the door on any possible conversations:<\/p>\n

I really don\u2019t believe that by having had that experience and holding the love and support and views that I have, mean that I can\u2019t and don\u2019t treasure Jo and the person that I had personal experiences with. I will never believe that one negates the other and that my experience of that person, I don\u2019t get to keep and cherish. To come back to our earlier thing\u2014I just don\u2019t think these things are either or. I think it\u2019s my deepest wish that I hope people who don\u2019t agree with my opinion will love me, and I hope I can keep loving people who I don\u2019t necessarily share the same opinion with. I think the thing I\u2019m most upset about is that a conversation was never made possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emma Watson found film promo “soul-destroying”<\/a>Emma Watson says she took an acting hiatus after realizing: “I didn’t have a voice”<\/a><\/p>\n

Rowling has, of course, stayed very busy in the years since she and the\u00a0Potter\u00a0kids broke up: She\u2019s been very publicly funneling parts of her vast wealth into supporting legal challenges to trans rights in the U.K., while also lending her name and support to the new Harry Potter\u00a0TV series in the works at HBO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Harry Potter\u00a0cast battle lines got drawn pretty quickly once J.K. Rowling started getting seriously into transphobic rhetoric circa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-167361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}