J.K. Rowling Says She Still Has ‘Deep Affection’ for ‘Some’ Harry Potter Actors After Emma Watson Rant

J.K. Rowling is shedding light on where she stands with the Harry Potter cast after slamming Emma Watson's latest remarks.

The author, 60, shared a lengthy post on X Monday, Sept 29, responding to Watson, 35, saying on a podcast that, despite their different stances on transgender rights, "I can love her, I can know she loved me, I can be grateful to her … and there can be this whole other thing."

Rowling labeled the former child actress, who starred as Hermione Granger in eight Potter films from the time she was 10, as "ignorant" and privileged, while also calling out her costar Daniel Radcliffe by name.

The next day, on Tuesday, Sept. 30, Rowling responded to an X user who claimed the Potter cast had betrayed the author.

"I have no wish to point my more rabid detractors at any individual, so I'll just say #NotAllPotterKids. There are some who've been staunch throughout and I have nothing but deep affection for them," said Rowling.

It was during a wide-ranging conversation for Jay Shetty's On Purpose podcast, published Sept. 24, that Watson, at one point, got candid about her relationship with Rowling.

She said, in part, "There is just no world in which I could ever cancel her out … for anything."

"I think the thing I'm most upset about is that a conversation was never made possible," Watson said. When host Shetty asked if she is "open for that dialogue" with Rowling, Watson agreed, though she added she does not "want to say anything that continues to weaponize a really toxic debate and conversation, which is why I don't comment or continue to comment."

When Rowling responded with a message on X, she said Watson and her Potter costars "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," she continued, "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."

Rowling has come under fire for her outspoken views on transgender rights since making a series of controversial tweets in 2020. LGBTQ+ advocates and various Potter stars spoke out to condemn the author's comments at the time and in the years since.

Watson, who has mostly stepped back from her acting career after last appearing in 2019's Little Women, made an apparent dig at Rowling while presenting at the BAFTA Awards in March 2022. As she took the stage at the time, Watson, also a prominent women's rights activist, told the audience, "I'm here for all of the witches."

Rowling, in her Sept. 29 comments, recalled that that moment "was a turning point for me," and she claimed that Watson had someone deliver a sympathetic letter to Rowling that read, "I'm so sorry for what you're going through."

"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," wrote Rowling.

The final Potter film debuted in theaters in July 2011, and a prequel franchise written for the screen by Rowling, Fantastic Beasts, released three installments between 2016 and 2022.

HBO is actively filming a new television series remake of Rowling's Potter books with a (mostly) new cast of actors, and a new audiobook recording of all seven books is coming soon.