To be clear, the one attacking the person she owes her wealth, fame and influence to isn’t Rowling, the creator of the Harry Potter books and the billion dollar industry it spawned, but Emma Watson, the now grown child actress who played cute Hermione in the films. It is Watson who has been criticizing Rowling by name for years because the British author has openly challenged the whole concept of transsexual ideology: that people can change their sex by just deciding they are the opposite sex than their genes make them and have the law accede to their decision.
The ethics issue today is not whether Rowling is right or wrong. The question is whether Watson (along with her fellow Harry Potter child stars Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe) has behaved with gratuitous disloyalty and ingratitude by attacking Rowling by name while she is being vilified and threatened by other celebrities and the woke news media.
Not to keep you in suspense, the answer is yes. Rowling finally had enough, and responded with the scathing social media take-down of Watson that the actress deserves.
What was apparently the magical straw for Rowling was Watson saying in a recent podcast that that their opposing views on trans rights do not mean she can’t or doesn’t “treasure” Rowling as a person. “I will never believe that one negates the other and that my experience of that person, I don’t get to keep and cherish,” the has-been star blathered. “I think it’s my deepest wish that I hope people who don’t agree with my opinion will love me, and I hope I can keep loving people who I don’t necessarily share the same opinion with.”
That hypocrisy, for that’s what it is, was too much for Rowling, who unleashed her considerable rhetorical talents on Watson, and brava to that. Rowling wrote in part,
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 hold these days. Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn’t want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them. However, Emma and Dan 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. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created… Until quite recently, I hadn’t managed to throw off the memory of children who needed to be gently coaxed through their dialogue in a big scary film studio. For the past few years, I’ve repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically, most notably on the [documentary about Rowling’s “cancelling” due to her dispute with the trans fad/movement] “Witch Trials of JK Rowling.” Ironically, I told the producers that I didn’t want her to be hounded as the result of anything I said.
[After excoriating me in the documentary] Emma asked someone to pass on a handwritten note from her to me, which contained the single sentence ‘I’m so sorry for what you’re going through’ (she has my phone number). This was back when the death, rape and torture threats against me were at their peak, at a time when my personal security measures had had to be tightened considerably and I was constantly worried for my family’s safety. 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.
Like other people who’ve never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is. She’ll never need a homeless shelter. She’s never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I’d be astounded if she’s been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her ‘public bathroom’ is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. …
I wasn’t a multimillionaire at fourteen. 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. The greatest irony here is that, had Emma not decided in her most recent interview to declare that she loves and treasures me – a change of tack I suspect she’s adopted because she’s noticed full-throated condemnation of me is no longer quite as fashionable as it was – I might never have been this honest.
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, as though the friend was in fact their mother. Emma is rightly free to disagree with me and indeed to discuss her feelings about me in public – but I have the same right, and I’ve finally decided to exercise it….
In sum, Rowling defines Emma as the personification of an ungrateful asshole…which is spot on.
I encounter friends, family and loved ones young and old literally every day who say and write things for public consumption that I deeply disagree with and often know for a fact are simply wrong and even dishonest. Sometimes, increasingly less and less because of the Trump Derangement virus that has made so many people stupid, intemperate and nuts, I politely disagree with them until they start screaming at me. Just yesterday one family member and a close friend stated that the late Charley Kirk was a “racist,” when there is no written or oral evidence of this, other than ideologues saying so. I might have chosen to point this out to them—I didn’t—but under no circumstances would I take to social media or Ethics Alarms and call out their ignorance using their names. I owe them better treatment: respect, forbearance, care, empathy, the Golden Rule. Friendship. Love.
The three thirty-ish stars of the Harry Potter movies have grown into passable professional actors thanks to the public recognition and cult fame that the franchise bestowed on them. Rupert Grint is probably the best of the three, and has a nice career as a journeyman character actor because he’s short and not very attractive. Daniel Radcliffe is the most successful—he was Harry Potter after all—but outside of name recognition there is nothing about Radcliffe that would otherwise elevate him above thousands of similarly (moderately) gifted actors who could do everything he does on stage and screen, in many cases better. Watson is obviously the most limited and least talented of the three, which is why even with the iconic status her role bestowed on her, her acting career has about reached the infomercial stage, “Dancing with the Stars” desperation or maybe a “Sharknado” sequel. Perhaps on the advice of her publicist, she has kept herself in the news by attacking Rowling and thereby virtue-signaling to her bubble.
That stinks, to be blunt. Yes, it’s tough being a child star; you are conditioned to be an attention addict, you are under-educated, you are spoiled, and you are never prepared for the crash that comes when you are no longer adorable unless you are Elizabeth Taylor or one of the lucky few who just get more attractive and talented every year. There are many ways to cope with that harsh reality: Shirley Temple switched careers. Annette became a normal Italian-American housewife. Brooke Shields learned to act, and too many turn to public misconduct, drugs and drink, like poor Lindsey Lohan.
Turning on the people who have helped you for cheap publicity, however, is not a legitimate option. Rowling’s slapdown was entirely appropriate, and if Watson has any sense, she’ll either apologize or shut up. Getting in a war of words with a best-selling writer is like challenging Aaron Judge to a home run derby.*
__________
*The baseball play-offs start today, and the Red Sox are playing the Yankees.
Ethics Alarms 
Good for Jo. Too bad Emma didn’t learn the lesson from “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” that governments that don’t want to pass on bad news often go to extremes to deny the problem exists. Those authority figures will sometimes even blackball people who try to spread the truth.
Of course, in Emma’s world, she is speaking truth to power because the authority figures in denial are ostensibly the conservatives.
She and the others had their career made in a fantasy world are now living in a fantasy world. I have never understood the propensity of folks to lend veracity to the utterings of these kind of people., ( or even baseball stars Jack, lots of luck to your Sox).
As Ms. Rowling points out, in her well written response, Emma has the right to express her opinion, she does not have the privlege to excoriate Ms. Rowling and then legitimatley say she loves her.
That is hypocrisy to the nth degree.
This is another classic example of “once an asshole, always an asshole”
Well, you may be aware that the Yankees are 30th on my list of favorite MLB teams, so I’ll be rooting for the Red Sox this evening.
But Aaron Judge — he’s like a force of nature, isn’t he? And a nice guy from all I’ve seen. You cannot help but pull for him, except of course when he’s trying to bury your team.
I’m in Colorado, so I just need to know what time the Rockies are playing?
Their next game is March 26th, 2026. Whether they PLAY is another matter…
Oct. 1, 2029.
Given Robert Galbraith’s public excoriating of all intersex people like myself, I must recuse myself from commenting on her words. I’m certain I can’t be objective.
Jack wrote:
The ethics issue today is not whether Rowling is right or wrong. The question is whether Watson (along with her fellow Harry Potter child stars Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe) has behaved with gratuitous disloyalty and ingratitude by attacking Rowling by name while she is being vilified and threatened by other celebrities and the woke news media.
Okay, I stopped at this point to just answer the question without additional analysis helping me out. Here’s my take to the issue as you have stated it:
All these young people have a perfect right to challenge Rowling’s position on controversies of the day, including naming her.
Having said that, they do owe her considerably for their fame. It is likely that absent being cast in the Harry Potter movie series, they would be far less wealthy and famous. To be fair, that debt is mitigated by the fact that their efforts, even as children, contributed greatly to the success of the series. So Rowling also owes them some measure of gratitude for their quality performances of her work.
How deep does that mutual debt go? I think it extends mostly to civility rather than content. Rowling is entitled to her views, and the Potter actors are entitled to espouse different ones, including criticizing Rowling’s position. Also, I think Rowling owes them some of that same goodwill.
But where they would go wrong is with tone and civility, not content. When someone does something that significant for you, you owe them civility at minimum. From what I have read very recently, Rowling has largely avoided direct criticism of the actors until now, and even now she has been civil if stern.
In sum, I don’t think a duty of respect and loyalty require people to refrain from criticizing each other on the issues of the day when there is strong disagreement. I do think that the parties owe each other respectful civility in their criticism, and part of that is avoiding gratuitous or unnecessary shots. From what I understand, which is not at all comprehensive, one party was civil and respectful, and the others not so much.
I doubt that Rowling owes the ex-kids anything. Those films would have been box office successes no matter which of a thousand qualified kids had the parts, and Rowling was already rich and famous before a single scene was shot through her books and selling the film rights. In other words, she was successful on her merits, and they got rich and famous because of her. They should kiss the ground she walks on, not pile on when she’s getting death threats.
A propos of nothing, but Rupert Grint is a fantastic name.
jvb
Especially in the UK. It’s pure Dickens.
I initially read that on X with trepidation, focused primarily on the thought that this was going to devolve into mudslinging and hysterics. By the end, I was convinced that Jo had said exactly what needed to be said and nothing more.
Emma, to break the back, has basically taken the tack of every “reasonable leftist” that has opined on the martyring of American saint Charlie Kirk. They say essentially “we may disagree, and I didn’t agree with his racist views, but assassination is wrong.”
Emma’s is, essentially, the same “we may disagree and I don’t agree with her transphobic views, but I still love her.”
Through a gritted teeth smile, the lies continue. Charlie was not racist in the slightest, and Jo is not transphobic. In all of Jo’s writings, I can see nothing that indicates she cares the slightest bit about what the mentally ill do to their own bodies. Her focus, and it is a righteous focus, is to protect children from exposure to those delusions, particularly little girls who are thrust into situations involving grown male anatomy.
I won’t give people any room when they speak about Jo or about Charlie. Yes, we agree that assassination is wrong, that murder is wrong; but I refuse to gloss over the fact that you are attempting character assassination in the same breath as you condemn actual assassination. It will not stand with me and I encourage all to embrace their duty to confront such efforts to assassinate Charlie’s character and memory.
Brilliantly stated, Tim. Thanks!!
But remember that the definitions are different on the Left. Opposing affirmative action is racist so that means Charlie Kirk was racist. Questioning if opportunists may take advantage of the trans-rights movement by engaging in Stolen Valor means J.K. Rowling is transphobic.
Until the right and the left can agree on definitions, debating the point is difficult.
You know that “diversity of thought” meme diagram that’s been floating around lately? I take it basically that the Right is successfully siphoning off reasonable minded people from the Left. This is good as there’s a growing population of people willing to talk, agree, disagree – all with a shared value system of respect. We may not be unified, and we’ll lose certain of our peers on single issue absolutism, but what it’s truly doing is isolating the contagion of violence and irrationality to the Left. Does the Right have its own problems? For sure. But at the moment, I think we have to keep these discussions alive and well amongst ourselves and ensure we are not doing the “no true scotsman” to people who want to participate in a functioning democracy.
(I really don’t know what got into me today….)
JK was absolutely spot on. Watson has the luxury of espousing views that don’t impact her. Watson is not living the reality of public restrooms, mixed sports, etc.
Yes, the movies helped Rowling make more money. But, in 2003 children, teens, and adults were more excited about Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix being released than going to see Eric Bana’s The Hulk. Who ever decided to release that movie the same weekend had no clue what was happening outside the studio. Kids waiting on the doorstep for the mail to arrive with their book. Rowling already “owned” the summer.