JK Rowling has taken no prisoners with her latest criticism of one of the Harry Potter actors.
Harry Potter author JK Rowling is no stranger to being embroiled in heated arguments with someone online, usually due to matters regarding gender identity and transgender issues. But her latest feud is with one of the stars of the Harry Potter films.
Last week, Doctor Who icon David Tennant, who plays Death Eater Bartemius “Barty” Crouch Jr in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), made divisive comments about British equalities minister Kemi Badenoch during an acceptance speech at the LGBT Awards while collecting an accolade for being a celebrity ally of the community, saying he wishes he lived in a world where the politician “doesn’t exist anymore.”

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“If I’m honest, I’m a little depressed by the fact that acknowledging that everyone has the right to be who they want to be and live their life how they want to live it as long as they’re not hurting anyone else should merit any kind of special award or special mention, because it’s common sense, isn’t it?” he said.
He added, “It is human decency. We shouldn’t live in a world where that is worth remarking on. However, until we wake up and Kemi Badenoch doesn’t exist anymore — I don’t wish ill of her, I just wish her to shut up — whilst we do live in this world, I am honoured to receive this.”

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Badenoch has advocated for banning trans women from entering women’s toilets and sports teams, while Tennant, whose daughter identifies as nonbinary, is an outspoken ally of the LGBTQ+ community.
At a red carpet interview during the LGBT Awards, Tennant called transgender critics “a tiny bunch of little whinging f**kers who are on the wrong side of history, and they’ll all go away soon.”
One of those critics is JK Rowling, who has been caught up in numerous public rows with the trans community over the past few years due to her opposing views on gender and trans issues. Now, not one to sit quietly, she has taken to X (Twitter) to slam Tennant’s comments, saying:
“This man is talking about rape survivors who want female-only care, the nurses currently suing their health trust for making them change in front of a man, girls and women losing sporting opportunities to males and female prisoners incarcerated with convicted sex offenders.”
This man is talking about rape survivors who want female-only care, the nurses currently suing their health trust for making them change in front of a man, girls and women losing sporting opportunities to males and female prisoners incarcerated with convicted sex offenders. pic.twitter.com/6C7yNC4TCt
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 28, 2024
She added, “For a man who’s supposedly a model of compassion and tolerance, he sure does want a lot of people to cease to exist.”
“For a man who’s supposedly a model of compassion and tolerance, he sure does want a lot of people to cease to exist.”
For a man who’s supposedly a model of compassion and tolerance, he sure does want a lot of people to cease to exist.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 28, 2024
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This isn’t the first time Rowling has clapped back at an actor from the Harry Potter films.
In April, when a commenter on X (Twitter) said, “Just waiting for Dan [Radcliffe] and Emma [Watson] to give you [Rowling] a very public apology… safe in the knowledge that you will forgive them,” referring to the actors’ public distancing from Rowling.
The author responded, saying, “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.”
Though many actors from the films, such as Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy), Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood), and Ralph Fiennes (Tom Riddle/Lord Voldemort), have defended Rowling against the backlash in recent years, Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe, a supporter of the trans community who wrote an essay in 2020 for the Trevor Project saying that “transgender women are women”, is among a handful who have opposed the author’s views, along with Emma Watson, who plays Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films.

In an interview with The Atlantic later that month, Radcliffe said in response to Rowling’s tweet, “It makes me really sad, ultimately, 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.”
David Tennant has yet to respond to Rowling’s comments.
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