Comedian Margaret Cho recently went on a tirade against Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling for her "anti-trans rhetoric," calling the author "despicable" and a "joke." It is no secret that Rowling has faced a lot of backlash for her views on gender identity ideology, which first emerged after she liked and commented on a few anti-trans tweets in 2020.On October 18, 2025, Margaret Cho, aged 56, took to her TikTok account to wage a war of words against J.K. Rowling, aged 60. The American comedian asked the author to "shut up" and wished that she required "gender affirming care" when she faced menopause. From there, Cho's remarks became explicit as she said:"Shut up, J.K. Rowling. Shut up. You're a joke. That's why your name is JK. Casuse you are a joke. Your anti-trans rhetoric makes me sick. You are despicable. I hope that when you face menopause, you have to take a lot of gender-affirming care, as I do.""And when you're taking these hormones, they make your p*bes go out so thick and hard it's like steel wool. And if anybody goes down to eat it, they get a face full of scars. I hope they start calling you "barbed wire." Shut up, J.K. Rowling," she continued.J.K. Rowling recently clashed with Emma Watson regarding their differing ideologies on the trans communityAll three lead actors of the Harry Potter film franchise, including Emma Watson, extended their support to the transgender community in 2020 after J.K. Rowling was first criticized for her views about trans people. In June 2020, after Rowling posted an essay about her opinions on gender issues on her website, Watson (who played Hermione Granger) took to X to write:“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."During the 2022 BAFTA Awards, Watson seemingly took a dig at Rowling when she was called to present an award. When Rebel Wilson introduced her as "a witch" on stage, Watson replied, "I'm here for all the witches." In a tweet in April 2024, Rowling implied that she would not "forgive" either Daniel Radcliffe or Emma Watson for supporting a "movement intent on eroding women's hard-won rights."J.K. Rowling with the cast of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows at the world premiere (Image via Getty)During her September 24, 2025, interview on Jay Shetty's On Purpose podcast, Emma Watson addressed her current feelings about the author for the first time, saying that she will "treasure" J.K. Rowling and "cherish" her time with the author despite their differences.“I really don’t believe that by having had that experience and holding the love and support and views that I have, means that I can’t and don’t treasure Jo and the person 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,” Watson said.Five days after the podcast aired, J.K. Rowling replied with a lengthy X post, criticizing the actress for being privileged and calling her ignorant. In her post, the author accused both Watson and Radcliffe of assuming that they had the "right" or the "obligation" to criticize her due to their past association after working together on Harry Potter, and acting as the "de facto spokespeople" for the franchise that she created.J.K. Rowling admitted that she felt a "certain protectiveness" over the actors as she'd seen them since they were children, adding that she "repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically." However, she said Watson's "all witches" comment was a "turning point" for her, which was further exacerbated by the actress's comments on Shetty's podcast. The author slammed Watson, claiming that she "has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is.""I wasn’t a multimillionaire at 14. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women’s rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges," Rowling wrote.Oli London @OliLondonTVLINKJ.K. Rowling calls out Emma Watson, after the Harry Potter star addressed their rift over trans views. “I wasn't a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women's rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges.The greatest irony here is that, had Emma not decided in her most recent interview to declare that she loves and treasures me - a change of tack I suspect she's adopted because she's noticed full-throated condemnation of me is no longer quite as fashionable as it was - I might never have been this honest.”In her post, J.K. Rowling also claimed that Watson once passed her a note expressing how sorry she was for the death threats the author supposedly received for her ideologies about trans rights, instead of directly reaching out to her. The author wrote that the note "hurt far more than the [all witches] speech itself."Meanwhile, Keira Knightley recently weighed in on the ongoing boycott against J.K. Rowling and her work due to her "ongoing campaign against trans people" during an interview with Decider on October 10, 2025. Knightly, who was cast as the voice of Dolores Umbridge in an audiobook production of Harry Potter, claimed that she was "not aware" of the boycott, then added, "We’re all living in a period of time right now where we’re all going to have to figure out how to live together, aren’t we?"