"She's ignorant of how ignorant she is": JK Rowling finally replies to Emma Watson's comments on their strained relationship

Harry Potter author JK Rowling took to the social media platform X on Monday, September 29, 2025 to deliver a lengthy rant calling out actress Emma Watson. Popularly known for bringing Hermione Granger to life on screen for the first time, the actress has long been a source of intense displeasure for Rowling for being a champion of trans rights. 

Infamously called a Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF), Rowling slammed Emma for having “so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is.”

She even claimed that the Beauty and The Beast star once sent her a note of sympathy while she was facing intense backlash over her transphobic comments.

According to Variety, the rift between Rowling and Emma began in 2020 when the author began to air her controversial views on the trans community.

Alongside her Harry Potter co-stars such as Daniel Radcliffe, Emma had publicly opposed the author’s views, stating at the time:

“Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are.”

In recent days, Emma told podcaster Jay Shetty in an interview:

“I really don’t believe that by having had that experience and holding the love and support and views that I have, mean that I can’t and don’t treasure Jo and the person that I had personal experiences with. I will never believe that one negates the other and that my experience of that person, I don’t get to keep and cherish.”

JK Rowling’s comments on Emma Watson 

I'm seeing quite a bit of comment about this, so I want to make a couple of points.

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… https://t.co/c0pz19P7jc

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 29, 2025

As pundits began dissecting Emma’s recent comments, Rowling took to X to share her views on the actress. She essentially called her naive and ignorant on the subject of gender debate, and too privileged to ever truly care.

“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 21 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,” observed Rowling, calling out other Harry Potter stars who sided against her. 

“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,” Rowling continued. “Years after they finished acting in ‘Potter,’ they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created.”

Rowling claimed that when she faced intense backlash for her anti-trans views, Emma sent her a handwritten note stating that she was sorry for what the narrator was going through.

She apparently took it as a slight as the actress did have her phone number but did not call. She accused Emma of flaring public opinion against her and then trying to reassure her of her kindness with a one-line note.

“Like other people who’ve never experienced adult life un-cushioned 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. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council-run swimming pool? Is she ever likely to need a state-run rape crisis centre that refuses to guarantee an all-female service? To find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who’s identified into the women’s prison?” Rowling continued in her rant on X.

“I wasn’t a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous,” she added. “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.”

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