JK Rowling claims 'abusive' ex-husband 'kept Harry Potter manuscript hostage to stop her leaving'
21 February 2023, 20:17
JK Rowling has claimed that her "abusive" ex-husband "hid the manuscript of her first Harry Potter novel in a bid to stop her from leaving him".
Rowling said that she was so worried that former husband Jorge Arantes would destroy her work that she would secretly take pages of it into work to have them photocopied.
The author opened up about the relationship in new podcast The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, a Spotify documentary series on her life and career.
Rowling said that she left Portuguese TV reporter Arantes twice before leaving for good, and was planning to leave him for the last time while she was pregnant with her daughter.
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“He’s not a stupid person,” she said. “I think he knew, or suspected, that I was going to bolt again. It was a horrible state of tension to live in.”
Rowling claimed that, determined to leave and fearful that her work would be destroyed, she snuck pages into work and kept them in a cupboard.
“He knew what that manuscript meant to me, because at a point, he took the manuscript and hid it, and that was his hostage,” she said.
“When I realised that I was going to go – this was it, I was definitely going – I would take a few pages of the manuscript into work every day.
“Just a few pages, so he wouldn’t realise anything was missing, and I would photocopy it.
"And gradually, in a cupboard in the staff room, bit by bit, a photocopied manuscript grew and grew and grew because I suspected that if I wasn't able to get out with everything he would burn it or take it and hold it hostage."
She added: "That manuscript still meant so much to me, [it] was the only thing I still prioritised saving… beyond my daughter.”
In 2020, Rowling released a personal essay in which she claimed to have suffered domestic abuse in her first marriage.
In response, Arantes gave an interview in which he said that he didn’t abuse Rowling but admitted to slapping her, adding: “I’m not sorry.”
Elsewhere in the podcast, Rowling also discussed having a "hugely traumatic" miscarriage, and the passing of her mother, who died aged 45 of complications linked to multiple sclerosis.
Rowling would later finish the book while living as a single mother in Edinburgh. Six sequels in the main series followed, and Harry Potter has since became a multi-billion dollar franchise.
As of last May, Rowling's net worth is estimated to be around £850 million, according to the Sunday Times.
Rowling married Scottish doctor Neil Murray in 2001.
