J.K. Rowling fired back at online trolls who sent death threats after she posted a tribute to the late Dolly Parton.
The Harry Potter author, 61, shared her remembrance on X on Tuesday after the country music legend died following a private battle with cancer. Parton, 80, passed away August 25, prompting an outpouring of grief from fans and celebrities worldwide.
Rowling’s initial post praised Parton’s charitable legacy and recalled their single meeting decades earlier. She wrote: “Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library was the best contribution to child literacy ever made by a celebrity. Our paths crossed once, in the 90s, backstage at a talk show, and I was completely tongue-tied and starstruck. RIP Dolly. You were a complete, irreplaceable one-off.”
Parton founded the Dollywood Foundation’s Imagination Library in 1995, inspired by her father, who could not read. The program began sending one free book monthly to enrolled children in Sevier County, Tennessee, from birth until their first year of school.
Despite the heartfelt tone of Rowling’s tribute, critics quickly flooded her replies. Many attacked her specifically by citing Parton’s well-known advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community, contrasting it with Rowling’s outspoken stance on transgender issues that has made her a polarizing figure in recent years.
One user crossed a clear line with a direct wish for her death. Rowling shared the comment with her followers and responded: “Top tips for wishing death on people in public. Blocking the target is useless if you’ve signposted your real name and university in your bio.”
Another critic aggressively called her a “f**ing monster” while insisting the two famous women had nothing in common. Rowling fired back with a musical reference: “Well, joke’s on you, because neither of us want Jolene to take our man.”
When a different user bizarrely attempted to claim Parton had been a Donald Trump supporter, Rowling shut them down bluntly. “Oh, do f— off,” she wrote. “At a conservative estimate, Dolly Parton was 100,000x the person you are.”
Rowling’s anti-trans positions have previously sparked public feuds with Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson. Radcliffe wrote an essay stating that transgender women are women, while Watson has advocated for trans people to live without constant questioning. Both actors publicly distanced themselves from the author.
In the viral moment that established this pattern of conflict, Rowling’s gender-critical commentary first drew widespread backlash from LGBTQ+ advocates and entertainment industry figures in 2020. The sustained criticism has continued across her social media presence, with supporters and detractors regularly clashing in her replies.
Despite the bitter divisions her views have created, Rowling joined massive stars including Beyoncé and Taylor Swift in honoring Parton’s remarkable and lasting cultural legacy this week.
Rowling continues to post actively on X and shows no sign of stepping back from public engagement on controversial topics.