The 60-year-old author<\/a> \u2014 who wrote the popular Harry Potter novels \u2014 has been publicly criticized for her controversial statements about transgender people, including celebrating the UK Supreme Court\u2019s April ruling<\/a> that trans women are not legally women under the Equality Act <\/a>and questioning the use of hormones for gender transitions. <\/a>However, Rowling has denied being transphobic.<\/a><\/p>\n Columbus has now addressed the controversy surrounding Rowling, saying he doesn\u2019t agree with her opinions on transgender rights. <\/p>\n \u201cI like to sometimes separate the artist from the art, I think that\u2019s important to do,\u201d he told Variety<\/a> in an interview published Monday. \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate, what\u2019s happened. I certainly don\u2019t agree with what she\u2019s talking about. But it\u2019s just sad, it\u2019s very sad.\u201d <\/p>\n Rowling is also the executive producer of the new Harry Potter series, which is expected to run for a decade on HBO. Each season is based on one of the seven books Rowling penned, following the story of 11-year-old Harry Potter as he learns of his acceptance to Hogwarts<\/a>. <\/p>\n However, Columbus said that he doesn\u2019t have any plans to work on that TV reboot. \u201cNo, I\u2019ve done it, you saw my version,\u201d he told Variety. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing left for me to do in the world of Potter.\u201d <\/p>\n Still, he gave his seal of approval for the new program. <\/p>\n \u201cThe great thing about it is that with the first and second and third book, we wanted to do it all,\u201d he said about the Harry Potter films. \u201cWe wanted to bring all of that onto the screen, and we didn\u2019t have the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n Since 2019, Rowling has made headlines for her views on transgender issues. She came out in support of Maya Forstater<\/a>, who worked as a tax expert at the Centre for Global Development (CGD), an international think tank. However, Forstater was dismissed from the job in 2019 because she tweeted that transgender people cannot change their biological sex.<\/p>\n In May, Rowling announced the launch of the J.K. Rowling Women\u2019s Fund.<\/a> The legal fund, which doesn\u2019t specifically mention transgender people,<\/a> will support \u201cindividuals and organizations fighting to retain women\u2019s sex-based rights in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces,\u201d its website says.<\/p>\n However, many bookstores in San Francisco later responded to the fund by<\/a> pulling Harry Potter books from stores\u2019 shelves in protest.<\/p>\n Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, the trio of child actors who played Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger in the film series, have all publicly shunned Rowling over her apparent anti-transgender views. The author has said she would not forgive them for criticizing her, telling them to \u201csave their apologies<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-92572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Chris](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/chris-colubus-jk-rowling.jpeg\")
Chris Columbus says the JK Rowling controversy is \u2018unfortunate\u2019 (Getty)<\/p>\n