Nicola Coughlan is not a fan of J.K. Rowling.
On Friday, April 18, the Bridgerton star, 38, slammed the author over her controversial support of an United Kingdom Supreme Court ruling that trans women are not legally women in a scathing post on her Instagram Stories.
Following the April 16 ruling, Rowling, 59, shared a post on X, which featured a celebratory photo of her smoking a cigar and holding up a drink. She wrote beside the image: “I love it when a plan comes together. #SupremeCourt #WomensRights.”
In response, Coughlan shared a post from The Cut on her Instagram Story and linked to an article from the outlet titled, “This Is a New Low for J.K. Rowling.” On top of the post, the actress wrote, “Keep your new Harry Potter lads,” referring to HBO’s new series that is adapting each of the seven books into their own season.
Coughlan said she “wouldn’t touch [the series] with a ten-foot pole” due to the author’s anti-trans beliefs, given that Rowling is involved in the HBO series — and was part of the selection process for its showrunner and executive producers.
The actress continued to voice her support for the trans community on Instagram, saying in a video that she was “completely horrified” by the news and planning to start a fundraiser for Not A Phase, a charity that supports trans adults across the U.K. Coughlan initially set her goal at £10,000 ($13,265) and vowed to match donations up to that amount.
“To see an already-marginalized community to be further attacked in law is really stomach-turning and disgusting, and these people celebrating it [are] more stomach-turning and disgusting,” she said in her video.
“If you are a cisgender person who is an ally of a trans person, I think now is the time to just speak up and make your voice heard, and let your trans, nonbinary friends and just the community at large know that you’re there for them and will keep fighting for them,” she added.
In the caption of her video, Coughlan wrote: “Allies of the Trans and Non Binary Community time to come together. F— the Supreme Court, f— the TERFs let’s raise some money 🩷🤍🩵”
Since then, Coughlan has raised nearly £100,000 ($132,655), which she confirmed on her Instagram Story on April 18.
Coughlan is not the only celebrity to speak out in opposition to Rowling, 59, who first came under fire in 2020 for making comments that were widely condemned as transphobic.
Following the comments, Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon spoke out and said Rowling’s opinions were “really painful” for her transgender son, while Pete Davidson called the author out on Saturday Night Live, as he asked, “What’s wrong with her?”
The cast of Harry Potter also weighed in. Daniel Radcliffe penned an essay for the Trevor Project days later, writing, “To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you. I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you.”
Rupert Grint and Emma Watson also spoke out in support of the trans community amidst the backlash. Grint told The Sunday Times, “I firmly stand with the trans community and echo the sentiments expressed by many of my peers. Trans women are women. Trans men are men.”
Watson, for her part, wrote in a tweet: “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. I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you and love you for who you are.”
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Last year, Radcliffe doubled down on his opposition to Rowling’s opinion as he told The Atlantic that her comments made him “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.”
“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,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life.”
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