Fans are “calling bulls—t” on J.K. Rowling’s claims that her controversial new book has nothing to do with the string of scandals she’s recently been involved in online.
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The Harry Potter author has found herself in hot water in recent years for her transphobic and bigoted comments, with even the Harry Potter cast themselves distancing themselves from her.
Now her new crime thriller novel, The Ink Black Heart, has sparked fresh outrage as a central character finds themselves at the centre of an online scandal after being accused of transphobia, ablism and racism.
Sound familiar? Critics and fans alike picked up on the similarities between the book and Rowling’s life quickly, but the British author has denied she drew inspiration from her own scandals.
Keep reading for everything you need to know about J.K. Rowling’s latest scandal.
Why are fans mad about J.K. Rowling’s book The Ink Black Heart?
Rowling’s crime thriller is penned under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith and centres around Edie Ledwell.
Edie is a YouTube creator who finds herself at the centre of a troll campaign after her online cartoon is accused of being transphobic, racist and ableist.
She is ultimately stabbed to death in the novel, but not before being harassed, subjected to death and rape threats, and having her home address revealed online.
Minus the murder, it’s a fate many “cancelled” media personalities face after being called out for wrongdoings online, whether legitimate or imagined.
It also bears a striking similarity to the situation Rowling has found herself in time and again in recent years after making transphobic comments, then doubling down on them.
Why is there so much scandal surrounding J.K. Rowling?
The backlash began when Rowling liked transphobic tweets, then mocked the gender-neutral phrase “people who menstruate” (often used to be inclusive to trans men and non-binary people).
Despite many fans and critics trying to educate her about trans rights, Rowling doubled down with a lengthy statement in June 2020 revealing she was “worried about the new trans activism.”
It led to mass outrage and many of Rowling’s former fans, friends and colleagues distanced themselves from the author as a result, including Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint.
Activists and advocates have slammed Rowling as a transphobe and “TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), with many calling her rhetoric “dangerous and bigoted”.
What has J.K. Rowling said about the comparisons?
For her part, Rowling has denied the book was inspired by her own scandals, saying during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show that the book was written before the drama.
“I should make it really clear after some of the things that have happened the last year that this is not depicting [that],” she claimed.
“I had written the book before certain things happened to me online.”
Though she remained vague when speaking about the online backlash, Rowling confessed she anticipated readers would spot the similarities between her life and the novel.
“I said to my husband, ‘I think everyone is going to see this as a response to what happened to me,’ but it genuinely wasn’t,” she continued.
“The first draft of the book was finished at the point certain things happened.”
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What have fans said about the comparisons?
But social media users simply don’t believe it, with many insisting that the similarities are too obvious for this to be mere coincidence.
One tweeted in response to Rowling’s comments: “I’m calling bulls—t. There’s no way she just happened to write a book about a transphobic creator getting murdered by trolls after she got called out for being a transphobe.”
Others slammed Rowling for making a transphobic creator the victim in her novel when millions of trans people around the world have been murdered for their identities.
“Joanne, nobody has gotten murdered for being transphobic online. TRANS people HAVE gotten murdered though, lots of them!!” one wrote.
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