Daniel Radcliffe has been living his best life in New York as a newly-minted first-time Tony nominee for his role in the revival of Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway. J.K. Rowling has been spewing hate, as usual, including against people who support gender-affirming healthcare. In a recent profile in The Atlantic to promote the show, Radcliffe once again countered J.K Rowling’s hateful rhetoric in simple, eloquent words:

Radcliffe on J.K. Rowling’s recent comments: “It makes me really sad, ultimately,” Radcliffe told The Atlantic of Rowling’s comments this week, adding that he hasn’t had any direct contact with the author since the beginning of her first speaking out against the trans community. “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.”

What Radcliffe wrote to the Trevor Project in 2020: “I realize that certain press outlets will probably want to paint this as in-fighting between J.K. Rowling and myself, but that is really not what this is about, nor is it what’s important right now,” adding that “transgender women are women. To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you,” he also wrote. “I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you.”

Why he felt compelled to make the statement back then: “I’d worked with the Trevor Project for 12 years and it would have seemed like, I don’t know, immense cowardice to me to not say something,” he said. “I wanted to try and help people that had been negatively affected by the comments… and to say that if those are Jo’s views, then they are not the views of everybody associated with the Potter franchise.”

This is so well put: Radcliffe added that Harry Potter “would not have happened without” Rowling, acknowledging that “nothing in my life would have probably happened the way it is without that person. But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life.”

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

“But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life.” EXACTLY. From the moment Daniel Radcliffe spoke out against Rowling’s transphobia, which he did swiftly and without hesitation, bigots have been screaming at him “But she gave you everything!” Yeah, she created an opportunity for him, one that he went after and worked hard at. But that doesn’t mean he owes her unreserved, unchecked, unquestioned fealty for the rest of his life. Radcliffe has always been deft at the nuances of these conversations. It definitely came through here how sad the whole thing makes him. And to be clear — Rowling really did specifically include Radcliffe and Emma Watson among the celeb trans healthcare supporters she would never forgive. Someone on Twitter commented to Rowling about the stars maybe now issuing her a public apology (in the wake of that stupid report, as if), “safe in the knowledge that you will forgive them.” And Rowling’s response to that was “Not safe, I’m afraid.” Who knew J.K. Rowling was gonna turn out to be Voldemort?

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