A difficult relationship. Rupert Grint opened up about his “tricky” relationship with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling in the wake of her controversial anti-trans comments.
“I liken J.K. Rowling to an auntie,” Grint, 33, wrote in a piece for the UK’s The Times on Saturday, January 15. “I don’t necessarily agree with everything my auntie says, but she’s still my auntie. It’s a tricky one.”
After Rowling, 56, posted several tweets featuring anti-trans sentiments, the actor shared a statement expressing solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community in 2020. “I firmly stand with the trans community. Trans women are women. Trans men are men,” Grint told Us Weekly at the time. “We should all be entitled to live with love and without judgment.” Grint’s Harry Potter costars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson also issued statements condemning Rowling’s tweets.
The Servant star previously spoke about his decision to speak out in support of the trans community during a March 2021 interview with Esquire. “Sometimes silence is even louder,” Grint said at the time. “I felt like I had to [speak] because I think it was important to.”
He added that he felt compelled to say something “just out of kindness, and just respecting people. I think it’s a valuable group that I think needs standing up for.”
Grint also acknowledged to Esquire that he still has “respect” for Rowling, and everything she created with the Harry Potter series — and for giving him the job that launched him into international stardom. “I am hugely grateful [for] everything that she’s done. I think that she’s extremely talented, and I mean, clearly, her works are genius,” he explained. “But yeah, I think also you can have huge respect for someone and still disagree with things like that.”
Grint recently appeared alongside his Potter costars in HBO Max’s Harry Potter 20th Anniversary reunion special, where he reflected on the lifelong bond he has with his fellow Hogwarts alumni. “We’ve watched each other grow up. We grew up together. We’re family,” Grint told Watson, 31, during an emotional conversation. “Even though we don’t see each other all the time, yeah. It’s a strong bond that we will always have, and we will always be part of each other’s lives.”
Rowling, meanwhile, did not take part in the reunion but was instead featured in archival footage shot in 2019.
