JK Rowling shares barbed critique of Harry Potter star Emma Thompson's view on sex workers in sarcastic online post

Daily Mail​

26-06-2025

JK Rowling has shared a barbed critique of Emma Thompson 's view on sex workers in a sarcastic online post.
The Oscar-winning actress, 66, made comments during a live Q&A at a screening of her 2022 film Good Luck to You that sex should be recommended by the NHS because it is so important to our health and wellbeing.
Thompson, who played Professor Trelawney in the films, said: 'What if when you're unwell, you can't make connections, but you need sex?
'You need sex because it's part of our health plan, if you like. It should really be on the NHS.'
She then admitted that some of her friends even hire escorts for this purpose.
Now, the Harry Potter author has hit out at the comments sarcastically writing on X: 'Yes, funny how you never hear, 'we're so delighted - Tatiana got straight As, so now she's trying to choose between law, medicine and prostitution!
'It's her decision, of course, so we're trying not to influence her, but Nigel and I both think she'd make a MARVELLOUS sex worker.'
She brutally continued: 'I'm going out on a limb here, but I suspect most sex workers didn't have the life choices available to a Cambridge-educated actress raised in Hampstead.'
And when one user said Rowling should not 'look down on sex workers', she hit back again to defend her position.
'When did you last meet someone who was trafficked into accountancy? In your experience, do an unusually high number of addicts and abuse survivors tend to become plumbers? Does the average quantity surveyor face a significantly elevated risk of early death because of his job?
'I don't look down on sex workers, I look down on the trade in vulnerable people's bodies, and on the immense arrogance and wilful blindness of privileged people who think that by reframing the sale of human bodies as 'a job like any other', inconvenient and ugly facts about that trade simply disappear.'
The two former colleagues have not often had similar views in the past with Rowling being a prominent advocate of gender critical views, where as Dame Emma Thompson signed an open letter in support of trans rights in Scotland in 2019.
The author has had similar run-ins with some of the other franchise stars such as Sean Biggerstaff, who savaged JK Rowling on social media, calling her an 'obsessed billionaire' and 'bigoted' for her views on transgender rights.
The 59-year-old has repeatedly made headlines for her vocal 'TERF' views and has celebrated the Supreme Court's landmark judgment that trans women are not legally women.
Justices in London ruledin April that in the 2010 Equality Act, the definition of the term 'women' relates only to biological women, and Rowling reportedly helped fund the campaign group which brought the case.
Amid widespread protests following the ruling, Harry Potter actor Biggerstaff - who portrayed Oliver Wood in three of the movies - has passionately condemned Rowling.
Biggerstaff showed his solidarity with the wizarding franchise's leading stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, who have all spoken out against Rowling.
In his diatribe against Rowling, Biggerstaff responded to her controversial post about the Supreme Court ruling, in which she raised her glass and smoked a cigar on her $150million superyacht in celebration.
After the billionaire author was hit by accusations she was 'smoking a blunt', she hit back on social media, clarifying that it was 'objectively, provably and demonstratively a cigar'.
Responding to her post, Biggerstaff claimed she had no sense of humour about the comments, writing: 'Bigotry rots the wit.'
He also showed his support for one person who compared her to Andrew Tate for puffing on a cigar, much like he does in his own videos, which many argue stir violence against women.