J.K. Rowling Claimed That She "Didn't Want" To Attend The "Harry Potter" Reunion Special After She Was Asked If She Was "Excluded"

If you're a super fan of the Harry Potter movies, you probably watched the Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts special when it premiered on HBO Max at the top of this year.

And you probably noticed that author J.K. Rowling was nowhere to be found in the reunion footage, although she did appear via archival clips.

You probably also wondered if she wasn't asked to appear due to the anti-trans rhetoric she's embraced in recent years — a set of beliefs that she's apparently so committed to, that she even blocked fellow author Stephen King on Twitter for showing his support for trans women.

Well, here's the thing: Shortly before the reunion aired, Entertainment Weekly reported that J.K. was actually invited to participate, but "her team determined" that she would appear via archival footage instead.

And in a recent interview with British broadcast personality Graham Norton, J.K. backed those reports up.

When Graham mentioned that J.K. had been "excluded" from the reunion, she replied, "I wasn't, actually."

“I was asked to be on that," she further explained. "I decided I didn’t want to do it. I thought it was about the films more than the books, quite rightly.”

“No one said, ‘Don’t.’ I was asked to do it, and I decided not to.”

Even if she's being 100% truthful in her explanation, there's also good reason to believe that J.K. being in the same room as the actors from the Harry Potter film franchise would be, uh, more than a little bit awkward.

Earlier this year, Emma Watson appeared at the BAFTAs and said she was "here for all the witches," an apparent dig at J.K.'s anti-trans beliefs.

Rupert Grint has referred to his relationship with J.K. as "tricky," and also responded directly to her anti-trans rhetoric in 2020 by affirming that "trans women are women."

Daniel Radcliffe also issued a statement around the same time as Rupert's. “Transgender women are women," he said at the time. "Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I.”

So, yeah, if J.K. decides to skip out on the next few reunions as well, I doubt anyone will mind.