Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling set the record straight after her name was included in the batch of Epstein Files released late last month.
Documents released from the United States Department of Justice seem to reveal that late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was invited to a premiere of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway. The invitation, dated April 2018, appeared to come from Rowling, now 60, along with producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender.
“This is beyond silly,” Rowling wrote via X earlier this week. “Neither I, nor anybody on my team, ever met, communicated with or invited Jeffrey Epstein to anything.”
The Epstein Files claimed that publicist Peggy Siegal allegedly emailed producer Callender asking to get tickets for a “very important friend” who wanted to “come see the spectacle.” Epstein was not named outright, but Callender ensured that he would be able to attend.
“Please deal with Jeffrey Epstein’s assistant,” Siegal wrote back. (Callender told Deadline that he was never made aware the tickets were for Epstein.)
After The Cursed Child premiere, another set of emails — this time between Epstein and Siegal — claimed that the financier was denied at the door.
“Couldnt get in,” Epstein allegedly wrote. “No biggy but thought you should know.”
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Despite Rowling’s denial, social media users have used the alleged invite to resurface the conversation about the author and her controversial beliefs.
In 2020, Rowling wrote an essay shared along with a series of social media posts that appeared to be transphobic. She has received widespread backlash — especially from the original Harry Potter film stars — about her views.
“Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are,” Emma Watson wrote via social media in 2020, seemingly addressing the Rowling controversy.
The actress, who played Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film franchise from 2001 to 2011, did not publicly address the Rowling controversy until late last year.
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“I just don’t want to say anything that continues to weaponize a really toxic debate and conversation, which is maybe why — well it is why — I don’t comment or continue to comment,” Watson, 35, said during the “On Purpose With Jay Shetty” podcast in September 2025. “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.”
Watson explained that her “deepest wish” is to be able to keep loving people whom she doesn’t “necessarily share the same opinion with.” (Rowling said in April 2024 that she would “never forgive” the actors for their views.)
“I can love her. I can know she loved me. I can be grateful to her,” Watson said of Rowling. “I can know the things that she said are true, and there can be this whole other thing and 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.”
