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- Aug 20, 2025
The Telegraph published a clapback piece directed at Andrew Garfield.
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Brendan O'Neill
Published 29 March 2026 1:30pm BST
I almost feel sorry for Andrew Garfield. Imagine the impermeable, smug bubble of celebrity group-think you would need to live in to think it’s still fashionable to bash JK Rowling.
That was my first thought when I saw the British actor take a swipe at Rowling last week. That this boy from Epsom is now so far up the fundament of LA luvvie nonsense that he still thinks mocking women who believe in biology is where it’s at.
It was during an interview with Hits Radio that Garfield, best known for playing Spider-Man, engaged in that most archaic woke sport of Rowlingphobia.
He told the host that he had only recently watched the original Harry Potter films from the 2000s. And they’re actually quite good, he said, with sullen, teenage vexation.
Then he let rip on Ms Rowling for her apparently demonic belief that people with penises are men, not women. “I know it’s controversial”, he said, “and we shouldn’t be putting money in the pocket of inhumane legislation right now through she that shall remain nameless…”
Where to even begin with such late 2010s vapid moral preening? Perhaps with the idea that it’s “controversial” to watch movies based on Rowling’s beloved novels.
What a chilling insight into the mindset of the self-regarding social-justice warrior. These people are so fastidiously obsessed with maintaining and displaying their fantasy virtue that they can’t even enjoy culture any more.
One pictures Garfield plonking down on his couch, a sweat breaking upon his brow, as he does that thing “good people” are not supposed to do: engage with the cultural output of That Woman. It’s a species of madness.
Then there’s his reference to “she that shall remain nameless”. She really is Voldemort to these moral infants – a devilish figure whose dark power grows upon every utterance of her name.
Rowling has become a Satan substitute for the godless fools of TikTok and La La Land. Purple-haired they/thems have even burnt her books like witch-finders of old setting fire to heretical texts.
Garfield has no idea how stunningly out of touch he sounds. And he isn’t alone. Other inhabitants of that rarefied plane of lazy, loopy celeb-think have also laid into Rowling for her perfectly normal belief that women are real and should have rights.
Some of the cast of the old Potter movies have had a pop. Daniel Radcliffe once implied that Rowling was “eras[ing] the identity and dignity of transgender people”.
Emma Watson has continually bristled against Rowling and her criticism of the trans ideology. Harry Potter and the Ungrateful Brats.
This led to one of the most delicious public takedowns of modern times, when Rowling, after years of holding her tongue, gave Ms Watson a piece of her mind.
“Like other people who’ve never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is”, Rowling wrote on X last year. Ouch. She That Shall Remain Nameless certainly shall not remain silent.
Last year, Pedro Pascal accused Rowling of being a “heinous LOSER” whose campaigning is “awful disgusting SH-T”. Why was he so mad? Because Rowling had the temerity to celebrate the Supreme Court ruling that said “woman” in the Equality Act refers to actual women.
The anti-Rowling bozos are so fantastically out of time. They’re the “LOSERS”. Their demented campaign to exile Rowling into a life of shame and bury her cultural legacy has been a catastrophic and hilarious failure.
Rowling is in the ascendancy. A multi-billion-dollar HBO series of the Harry Potter novels lands later this year. And women, many with Rowling’s backing, are scoring brilliant victories against the trans ideology’s upending of women’s rights and invasion of women-only spaces.
Garfield, Radcliffe, Pascal and the rest should be put on the spot. They should be made to tell us exactly what they hate about Rowling’s campaigning.
Is it her belief that men are not women? Is it her funding of Biera’s Place in Edinburgh, a women-only service for survivors of sexual assault? Is it her opposition to men playing in women’s sports, including boxing, where biological males pound women literally for sport?
Come on lads, out with it – which of these things do you find “heinous”, and why?
Archive
Andrew Garfield would rather be on the right side of Hollywood than history
Celebrities are so obsessed with displaying their fantasy virtue that they can’t even enjoy culture any moreBrendan O'Neill
Published 29 March 2026 1:30pm BST
I almost feel sorry for Andrew Garfield. Imagine the impermeable, smug bubble of celebrity group-think you would need to live in to think it’s still fashionable to bash JK Rowling.
That was my first thought when I saw the British actor take a swipe at Rowling last week. That this boy from Epsom is now so far up the fundament of LA luvvie nonsense that he still thinks mocking women who believe in biology is where it’s at.
It was during an interview with Hits Radio that Garfield, best known for playing Spider-Man, engaged in that most archaic woke sport of Rowlingphobia.
He told the host that he had only recently watched the original Harry Potter films from the 2000s. And they’re actually quite good, he said, with sullen, teenage vexation.
Then he let rip on Ms Rowling for her apparently demonic belief that people with penises are men, not women. “I know it’s controversial”, he said, “and we shouldn’t be putting money in the pocket of inhumane legislation right now through she that shall remain nameless…”
Where to even begin with such late 2010s vapid moral preening? Perhaps with the idea that it’s “controversial” to watch movies based on Rowling’s beloved novels.
What a chilling insight into the mindset of the self-regarding social-justice warrior. These people are so fastidiously obsessed with maintaining and displaying their fantasy virtue that they can’t even enjoy culture any more.
One pictures Garfield plonking down on his couch, a sweat breaking upon his brow, as he does that thing “good people” are not supposed to do: engage with the cultural output of That Woman. It’s a species of madness.
Then there’s his reference to “she that shall remain nameless”. She really is Voldemort to these moral infants – a devilish figure whose dark power grows upon every utterance of her name.
Rowling has become a Satan substitute for the godless fools of TikTok and La La Land. Purple-haired they/thems have even burnt her books like witch-finders of old setting fire to heretical texts.
Garfield has no idea how stunningly out of touch he sounds. And he isn’t alone. Other inhabitants of that rarefied plane of lazy, loopy celeb-think have also laid into Rowling for her perfectly normal belief that women are real and should have rights.
Some of the cast of the old Potter movies have had a pop. Daniel Radcliffe once implied that Rowling was “eras[ing] the identity and dignity of transgender people”.
Emma Watson has continually bristled against Rowling and her criticism of the trans ideology. Harry Potter and the Ungrateful Brats.
This led to one of the most delicious public takedowns of modern times, when Rowling, after years of holding her tongue, gave Ms Watson a piece of her mind.
“Like other people who’ve never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is”, Rowling wrote on X last year. Ouch. She That Shall Remain Nameless certainly shall not remain silent.
I'm seeing quite a bit of comment about this, so I want to make a couple of points.
I'm not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should… https://t.co/c0pz19P7jc
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 29, 2025
Last year, Pedro Pascal accused Rowling of being a “heinous LOSER” whose campaigning is “awful disgusting SH-T”. Why was he so mad? Because Rowling had the temerity to celebrate the Supreme Court ruling that said “woman” in the Equality Act refers to actual women.
The anti-Rowling bozos are so fantastically out of time. They’re the “LOSERS”. Their demented campaign to exile Rowling into a life of shame and bury her cultural legacy has been a catastrophic and hilarious failure.
Rowling is in the ascendancy. A multi-billion-dollar HBO series of the Harry Potter novels lands later this year. And women, many with Rowling’s backing, are scoring brilliant victories against the trans ideology’s upending of women’s rights and invasion of women-only spaces.
Garfield, Radcliffe, Pascal and the rest should be put on the spot. They should be made to tell us exactly what they hate about Rowling’s campaigning.
Is it her belief that men are not women? Is it her funding of Biera’s Place in Edinburgh, a women-only service for survivors of sexual assault? Is it her opposition to men playing in women’s sports, including boxing, where biological males pound women literally for sport?
Come on lads, out with it – which of these things do you find “heinous”, and why?







