Emma Watson doesn't want to see JK Rowling "cancelled"
The 35-year-old actress has faced criticism from the Harry Potter author for her advocacy for the trans community but Emma has insisted that just because they have different opinions, doesn't mean she still doesn't "treasure" the 60-year-old writer and her memories of their interactions when she was younger.
28 September 2025
Speaking to Jay Shetty on the On Purpose podcast, she said: "I really don't believe that by having had that experience and holding the love and support and views that I have, mean that I can't and don't treasure Jo and the person that I, that I had personal experiences with.
"I will never believe that one negates the other and that my experience of that person, I don't get to keep and cherish I to come back to our earlier thing. Like I just don't think these things are either or.
"I think it's my deepest wish that I, I hope people who don't agree with my opinion will love me and I hope I can keep loving people who I don't necessarily share the same opinion with.
"I guess where I've landed it, it's not so much what we say or what we believe, it's how we say it. I just see this world right now where we seem to giving permission to this throwing out of people, or that people are disposable. I will always think that's wrong.
"I just believe that no one is disposable. And everyone as far as possible, whatever the conversation is, should and can be treated with, at the very least, dignity and respect."
The Perks of Being a Wallflower actress admitted she is "open for that dialogue" with the author about her belief in an erosion of women's rights to appease the trans community but is careful not to add to a "toxic" debate.
She said: "I think the thing I'm most upset about is that a conversation was never made possible," Watson told Shetty of the situation. When Shetty asked if Watson is "open for that dialogue...
"I just don't want to say anything that continues to weaponize a really toxic debate and conversation. I don't comment [on trans rights], or continue to comment - not because I don't care about her or about the issue - but because the way that the conversation is being had feels really painful to me."
Emma praised Rowling's "kindness and words of encouragement and steadfastness" toward her in the past and noted that in being cast as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies, she had received an opportunity that "barely exists in the history of English literature".
She added: "There is just no world in which I could ever cancel her out for, or cancel that out, for anything. It has to remain true - it is true.
"I can love her, I can know she loved me, I can be grateful to her, I can know the things that she said are true, and there can be this whole other thing. My job feels like to just hold all of it, but the bigger thing is just what she's done will never be taken away from me."
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