Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe reopens war of words with JK Rowling over trans views insisting he doesn’t owe her ‘the things he truly believes’ just because she made him a superstar – and says he …’ Full story in comments

Daniel Radcliffe has reignited a row with JK Rowling over trans views by saying his beliefs don’t have to align with the author’s just because she made him a star.

The actor, 34, and fellow Harry Potter stars Emma Watson, 34, and Rupert Grint, 35, have been outspoken in their support of gender ideology – that biologically male trans women are actually women.

Yet although Radcliffe admitted ‘nothing in my life’ would likely have happened if not for beloved author Rowling, 58, he said that didn’t mean he didn’t owes her ‘the things he truly believes’.

Despite the multi-millionaire’s view that trans women are women, just this week it was revealed the NHS will declare sex is biological.

It came after the Cass report found there is ‘remarkably weak evidence’ for gender-affirming techniques in children such as puberty blockers.

It also said that ‘for the majority of young people, a medical pathway may not be the best way’ to help when they are ‘presenting with gender incongruence or distress’.

Daniel Radcliffe has reignited his row with JK Rowling after admitting her views on trans people have left him ‘really sad’ (Pictured in October 2023)

Rowling has faced frequent attacks online from the trans community for saying that biologically male trans women should not be allowed in women’s spaces.

Her spat with Radcliffe started after she called out an article that used the phrase ‘people who menstruate’ instead of women, writing: ‘I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?’

Shortly afterwards, Radcliffe penned an article for an LGBT+ suicide prevention charity that said ‘transgender women are women’.

This week he told The Atlantic he had not spoken to Rowling for years, which upset him.

Yet despite the Cass report and Rowling’s suggestion he should apologise to detransitioners harmed by puberty blockers, Radcliffe refused.

Instead, he said: ‘I will continue to support the rights of all LGBTQ people, and have no further comment than that.’

He said: ‘Jo, obviously Harry Potter would not have happened without her, so 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.’

He added: ‘It makes me really sad, ultimately, because 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.’

In response to the publication of the Cass report last month, Rowling insisted she wouldn’t forgive stars who had spoken out against her, including Daniel and his Harry Potter co-stars.

When one fan said they were ‘just waiting for Dan and Emma [Watson’ to offer a ‘very public apology’ knowing they’d be safe in the knowledge the author would forgive them, she wrote: ‘Not safe I’m afraid. Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces.’

Radcliffe has long been a supporter of the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ suicide-prevention hotline and crisis-intervention resource.

He said: ‘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.

‘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