Daniel Radcliffe is “really sad” about “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling and her vocal anti-transgender views.
“It makes me really sad, ultimately,” Radcliffe told The Atlantic in an interview published Tuesday, “because I do look at the person that I met, the times that we met, and the books that she wrote, and the world she created, and all of that is to me so deeply empathetic.”
“‘Harry Potter’ would not have happened without her, so nothing in my life would have probably happened the way it is without that person,” he added. “But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life.”
Rowling continued her yearslong anti-trans rights campaign by sharing a list on social media last month of transgender individuals in order to mock a new hate-crime bill in the U.K. that gave them extra protections.
After police said her posts were not criminal under the new Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, Rowling wrote on social media earlier last month that Radcliffe and his former co-star Emma Watson, who has also vocally supported the trans community, “can save their apologies.”
Rowling’s novels and their movie adaptations were a true phenomenon and made Radcliffe, who starred as the titular main character, a star. While he has used his fame to advocate for an LGBTQ suicide-prevention hotline known as The Trevor Project, however, Rowling grew into a staunch anti-trans voice.
The writer argued against the term “people who menstruate” in 2020 and has doubled down on her opinions since then. Radcliffe said Tuesday he hasn’t spoken to Rowling since she first made her views known, but countered her comments at the time.
“I’d worked with the Trevor Project for 12 years and it would have seemed like, I don’t know, immense cowardice for me to not say something,” he told The Atlantic. “I wanted to try and help people that had been negatively affected by the comments. And to say that if those are Jo’s views, then they are not the views of everybody associated with the ‘Potter’ franchise.”
Radcliffe, who recently earned his first Tony Award nomination, said Tuesday that “a lot of people found some solace” in the fantasy series and that the bond remains “between readers and the books” — and not between the readers and Rowling.
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