Laurence Fox calls Harry Potter stars ‘spoiled millionaires’ for turning against JK Rowling in trans row

Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint all publicly disagreed with Rowling’s recent comments on transgender issues

Laurence Fox has criticised stars of the Harry Potter franchise who turned against JK Rowling for her comments about transgender issues.

Rowling, who has made anti-trans comments in the past, appeared to take issue with a headline about “people who menstruate” and later argued that discussion of gender identity invalidated biological sex.

She also wrote a 3,700-word article on her website explaining that she was a survivor of sexual assault, which is what helped convince her of the need to maintain women-only spaces.

Her essay was not supported by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson or Rupert Grint, who all rose to fame through their roles in the Harry Potter films. “Transgender women are women,” Radcliffe stated in his own essay. “Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I.”

In a new op-ed for The Spectator, Fox wrote: “First they came for the statues, then Basil Fawlty got ‘cancelled’ and three spoiled millionaires turned on their creator. So it was with JK Rowling’s woke progeny.”

Referencing the name of the seventh book in the series, he added that “Harry Potter, it would seem, is deathly shallow” and Rupert Grint “succumbed to the growing pressure to slip his golden dagger between Rowling’s shoulder blades”.

“Surely these rich list regulars are perfectly placed to say what they actually think, protected from the ever-tightening vice of censorship?” he wrote. “Apparently not. Fearing for their virtue or their future or both, the three children rounded on their mother. We must hope for better from Neville Longbottom.”

The star who played Neville Longbottom in the franchise, Matthew Lewis, appeared in the 2012 play Our Boys, produced by James Seabright, with Fox.

In the Spectator article, Fox also wrote about the recent resurgence in the Black Lives Matter movement, arguing “righteous global outrage at a cruel and vile killing has morphed into a different agenda”.

He also said he feared he “may never get an acting job again” after his controversial Question Time appearance in January and the backlash that followed.