Dr. Neil Murray ‘gives up work’
Last year several newspaper stories alleged that my husband had given up work, presumably to sit at home and watch me write. This is one of those stories that make me angry, because they hurt my family. We asked the newspapers who had printed the misinformation to correct the story, which they did. However, an article has recently appeared in which Neil is yet again described as not working. So… and hopefully for the last time… Neil has NEVER given up work and continues to practise as a doctor in Edinburgh.
Gilderoy Lockhart is based on JKR’s first husband
No, he most certainly is not. I have always been honest about the fact that Gilderoy Lockhart WAS inspired by a real man (see the ‘Extras’ section). For obvious reasons I am not going to identify the person in question – however irritating he was, he does not deserve that – but I can state categorically that I never married him. I do not lie about the inspiration for characters (although at times like these, I wonder why I don’t refuse to answer these questions at all!)
Harry Potter based on JKR’s cousin
Once more I put fingers to keyboard to state wearily that Harry is a completely imaginary character. He is not based on any of the men I have met during my lifetime who wore glasses, or any of the boys who had a scar somewhere on their face, or any of my friends who went to boarding school. But wait – now I stop and think about it, I’M the real Harry Potter! I wear glasses, I’ve got a scar, my school had houses, I sometimes got into trouble… so stand by to read a story in some tabloid tomorrow headlined: ‘Rowling Demands Half-Share of Own Royalties’. Unfortunately and depressingly, these sorts of stories crop up all the time (see my ‘Biography’). There is nothing any author can do to stop people claiming that they ‘inspired’ characters. I can only tell the truth and trust that readers with a grain of sense will know whom to believe.
Joanie
According to a recent article in a UK newspaper, I am known to my good friends as ‘Joanie’. Just for the record, nobody, in the whole course of my life, has ever called me ‘Joanie.’ I’m looking forward to finding out what my husband calls me. ‘Kevin’, perhaps.
Rowling is ‘riled’ by being seen as a children’s author
Absolute garbage! I have said many times that if I remain a children’s author forever (which I may well do) I will never see this as being a lesser, easier or less ‘serious’ career than writing for adults. Whenever I have discussed the possibility of writing adult fiction, it has nearly always been because an interviewer has asked ‘might you one day write a book for adults?’
Rowling hates Harry Potter
I love Harry Potter and I always will.
Rowling has had Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall to dinner at her house.
Well, I just hope they remember it, because I can’t.
J K Rowling is not a real person, but the name given to a group of anonymous writers
This theory originated in Norway, which figures… nobody who is familiar with the UK press could possibly imagine that such a massive fraud would remain unexposed for longer than ten minutes.
According to a British newspaper, I recently appeared at a Brazilian literary festival. And was I content to take home a nice bit of pottery or leatherwork as a souvenir?
No, not good enough for JK. I decided to buy myself a palatial Brazilian holiday home while I was there. If any Brazilian Harry Potter fans are reading this and wondering why they never got the chance to buy tickets to hear me read, it’s because I’ve never been to Brazil. And if any Brazilian property dealers are wondering why they didn’t get my business, it’s because I’ve never bought a house in Brazil, either. Not even the sumptuous colonial-style mansion, whose grounds nudge the edge of a forest, described in the article. My imaginary neighbour was Mick Jagger, too. I’d say you couldn’t make it up… except someone has.
JKR has no right to talk about the glorification of unhealthily underweight women in some sections of the media, because there’s a fat boy in her books.
There have been several variants of this story, all of which were written by people who had either never read past chapter two of ‘Philosopher’s Stone’, or chose simply to ignore what the rest of us fondly term ‘facts’. I thought of listing all the many characters in the Harry Potter books who are on the plumper side, to demonstrate what a very diverse group of personalities they are, how they include several of my most important, admirable and lovable characters, and how ‘overweight’ in no way equates to ‘bad’ in my fictional world… but Andy from Mugglenet has done it for me. See http://www.mugglenet.com/infosection/opinion/fatfem.shtml. Andy, I really owe you, because I’ve used the time you saved me to type up half a chapter instead!
J K Rowling does pilates, yoga, jogs, has botox injections and has cut out saturated fats
Apparently I’ve been ‘Rowling back the years’ (ho, ho). Yes, the secrets behind my new (ahem) health and beauty regime have been confided to a British newspaper by a ‘friend’. Now, most people stop having imaginary friends once they’re adults, but mine sometimes drop in on journalists to give them completely unrecognisable accounts of my life. My carbon-based friends, however, if asked whether I jog, do pilates and yoga, have a frozen forehead or refuse cake, might well suffer some kind of mirth-induced internal injury. It would be churlish not to thank the journalist concerned for saying that I look better now than I did in the early days of Harry Potter’s success, and I am indeed grateful for the underlying compliment. In the interests of accuracy, however, I must point out that, far from losing weight, I’ve gained a good bit since the ‘before’ photographs featured in the article. So J K Rowling’s top tip for today is: eat more. Perhaps my next project could be a revolutionary diet book?
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