Daniel Radcliffe on JK Rowling rift: “It makes me really sad”

Daniel Radcliffe has opened up again about JK Rowling’s comments about the trans community.

The author of the best-selling Harry Potter series has received significant backlash in recent years for anti-trans comments she has made online.

Radcliffe, who played the famous wizard in the film series, has addressed Rowling’s comments previously, expressing his disagreement and lack of association with her views.

Now, the actor responds again to her controversial comments in a new interview with The Atlantic.

“It makes me really sad, ultimately,” he said. “Because I do look at the person that I met, the times that we met, and the books that she wrote, and the world that she created, and all of that is to me so deeply empathic.”

In 2020, Radcliffe defended the trans community in an essay he wrote for the Trevor Project, an organisation focused on suicide prevention among the LGBTQ+ community.

In the essay, Radcliffe referenced Rowling, writing: “Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I.”

Speaking to the publication at the time about his essay, Radcliffe expressed how he felt it would be “immense cowardice” to not speak out. “I wanted to try and help people that had been negatively affected by the comments,” he shared. “And to say that if those are Jo’s views, then they are not the views of everybody associated with the Potter franchise.”

Earlier this month, Rowling responded to the comments made by both Radcliffe and his Harry Potter co-star Emma Watson in defence of the trans community.

As well as suggesting she wouldn’t forgive the actors for their comments, the author wrote on X: “Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces.”

When asked by The Atlantic to speak further on this comment, Radcliffe responded: “I will continue to support the rights of all LGBTQ people, and have no further comment than that.”

He did however respond to accusations that he was being ungrateful to Rowling by opposing her views. “Jo, obviously 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 shared.

“But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life.”

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