JK Rowling Reveals Why She Wasn’t In The Harry Potter Reunion
JK Rowling has opened up about why she didn't end up participating in the Harry Potter reunion special for HBO
This article is more than 2 years old
Harry Potter series author JK Rowling became embroiled in controversy in early June 2020 following controversial tweets aimed at the transgender community. Her stance, which she has yet to back down from, has caused fans and stars of the wizarding world to speak out against her. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Eddie Redmayne have all taken aim at Rowling for her offensive remarks. Naturally, when HBO Max released their reunion special entitled Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts early this year and Rowling was nowhere to be seen, fans assumed it was because Warner Bros. wouldn’t allow her to be involved. Instead, the author’s absence from the 102-minute special comes down to her not wanting to participate.
According to Deadline, JK Rowling spoke to host Graham Norton on his Virgin Radio UK show and said, “I was asked to be on that and I decided I didn’t want to do it.” She went on to say, “No one said don’t [do it]…I was asked to do it and I decided not to.”
Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts premiered on January 1st, 2022, and just about every single individual who had a hand in the film franchise’s success made an appearance, from the series stars to various directors. With that said, it’s easy to understand why fans would expect JK Rowling, the author solely responsible for bringing the magical world to life, to be involved.
Although JK Rowling is still under fire for her views on transgender women, it’s impossible to erase her extraordinary accomplishments as a writer. The 57-year-old conceived one of the most celebrated collection of books of all time. Harry Potter, the seven-volume series, has sold more than 500 million copies around the world and has been translated in at least 70 languages.
Like the films, the Harry Potter novels by JK Rowling follow a young boy and his adventures as he attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he learns how to perform magic and comes face to face with his archenemy, Lord Voldemort.
Before her success with Harry Potter, which has made her one of the richest women in the world, JK Rowling graduated with a degree in French from the University of Exeter in 1987. She worked different temp jobs as a bilingual secretary. The idea for the characters of Harry Potter came to her in 1990 while she waited for a delayed train. Prior to the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (aka The Sorcerer’s Stone) in 1997, Rowling moved to Portugal where she got married and had a daughter before relocating to Scotland. Eventually, she got divorced and wrote while surviving on state assistance as a single parent. In 2008, Forbes named her the world’s highest-paid author. Talk about a Cinderella story!
Since the conclusion of Harry Potter’s story with the seventh entry The Deathly Hollows, JK Rowling has gone onto write The Cormoran Strike Detective Series, which consists of three installments: The Cuckoo’s Calling, The Silkworm, and Career of Evil. You may not have recognized Rowling as the author since she used the pen name Robert Galbraith. Although she appears to be staying busy with her new series of novels, perhaps one day we’ll see her return to the wizarding world that made her a household name.
