The short version
- Daniel Radcliffe (34) has cut contact with author JK Rowling (58) after her controversial statements about transgender people
- Radcliffe speaks out about his relationship with Rowling in an interview with The Atlantic
- The actor still sees Rowling as an empathetic person from the Harry Potter era
- He attempts to separate Rowling’s views from the Harry Potter community
- JK Rowling has previously been accused of transphobia, which she denies
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The statement comes in a larger interview with Daniel Radcliffe (34) in The Atlantic, where he says that he has not had direct contact with JK Rowling (58) in recent years, ever since Rowling made her first controversial statements about transgender people.
– In the end, it makes me sad, really, says Radcliffe about losing contact with JK Rowling.
Instead, he looks at her from the period they worked closely together when Daniel Radcliffe broke through as an actor playing the main character in the Harry Potter films.
Also read: She is not transphobic
– Because I look at the person I met, the times we met and the books she wrote, and the world she created. All of this is deeply empathetic for me, says Radcliffe.
He has also previously been critical of JK Rowling’s statements about transgender people. She has been called a transphobe several times, which she herself has denied.
In 2020, Daniel Radcliffe wrote a post about this which he – to the Atlantic – says was meant to separate Rowling’s views from the views of anyone who feels at home in the Harry Potter community.
Also read: This is the JK Rowling controversy
– I wanted to try to help people who had been negatively affected by the comments. To say that if these are the opinions of Jo (Rowling, editor’s note), then they are not necessarily the opinions of everyone who is somehow connected to the Potter franchise, he explains.
In the four-year-old post, Radcliffe writes, among other things, that “trans women are also women”, and links the criticism to the woman whom he calls “the person who, more than anyone else, is responsible for the direction his life has taken”.
Also read: Internal turmoil after JK Rowling’s trans comment
JK Rowling fell out of favor in many circles after she tweeted support for researcher Maya Forstater in 2019, who had lost her job in a British think tank the year before after writing “offensive and exclusionary” messages about transgender people on Twitter.
Forstater sued his former employer after the dismissal, but lost the case in a British employment tribunal. In the ruling, it was stated that Forstater’s statements are “incompatible with human dignity and fundamental rights”.
As recently as April this year, JKRawling responded to a comment on a longer post about her views on X saying “just waiting for Dan and Emma to give you a very public apology… confident you will forgive them”.
Rowling’s response was far from conciliatory.
“It’s not safe, unfortunately. Celebrities who courted a movement intent on undermining women’s hard-earned rights, and who used their platforms to cheer for the reassignment of minors, can spare their apologies, the author’s response said, among other things.
