Perennially controversial author J.K. Rowling says she has a “love-hate” relationship with social media, the Telegraph reports.
The Harry Potter creator reflected on her use of Twitter in a radio interview with Irish comedian Graham Norton.
“Social media can be a lot of fun, and I do like the pub argument aspect of it,” she said. That can be a fun thing to do. I sort of have a love-hate relationship with it now. I can happily go for a few days without getting into a pub brawl.”
Rowling has frequently drawn controversy on Twitter for her comments on gender, which have been called transphobic by critics. In 2020, she tweeted, “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”
And last month, she criticized “self-proclaimed liberals [who] turn a blind eye to the naked misogyny of the gender identity movement and the threat it poses to the rights of women and girls.”
Rowling told Norton, “I try to behave online as I would like others to behave. I’ve never threatened anyone. I wouldn’t want anyone to go to their houses or anything like that.”
Rowling recently made news after being threatened on Twitter by a user who had also posted support for Hadi Matar, the man arrested in connection with the recent attack on novelist Salman Rushdie. After Rowling posted that she felt “sick” after hearing about the assault, the user tweeted at Rowling, “Don’t worry you are next.”
Rowling’s latest book, The Ink Black Heart—written under the pen name Robert Galbraith—is slated for publication Tuesday by Mulholland Books/Little, Brown. A critic for Kirkus called the novel “an overblown whodunit” and “long, loose, and lax.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
