Joanne K Rowling's first husband, Jorge Arantes, has admitted to slapping the famous writer, but he does not feel sorry about it.
"I slapped Joanne — but there was not sustained abuse. I'm not sorry for slapping her", Arantes, 52, said.
Rowling had earlier revealed she had experienced domestic abuse from Arantes, a Portuguese TV reporter, while also admitting that she was sexually assaulted in the past but without mentioning any specific names. The author explained she opened up about the issue to elaborate on her previous tweets about transgender women. In a long post published on Wednesday, Rowling defended her past comments and said she could relate to any traumatic experience.
"I’ve been in the public eye now for over twenty years and have never talked publicly about being a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor", Rowling wrote. "I'm mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who've been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces."
Rowling has been criticised for being "anti-trans" after she posted a tweet mocking the title of an article about "people who menstruate".
"I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?", she wrote.
She then faced a huge backlash from social media users and her colleagues, who considered her opinion about transgender people offensive, including Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe and Fantastic Beasts actor Eddie Redmayne.
What JK Rowling is saying is harmful and dangerous and the trans and non-binary witches and wizards deserve to feel welcomed and loved in the Harry Potter community dammit!!!!
— Tessa Netting (@tessanetting) June 9, 2020
Rowling was previously slammed for "transphobia" after she defended a woman who lost an employment tribunal case over her tweets about transgender people.
