JK Rowling reveals her ex-husband hid the manuscript for first Harry Potter to stop her from leaving

JK Rowling revealed it The abusive ex-husband hid the manuscript of the first Harry Potter novel in an attempt to prevent her from leaving him.

The author said Portuguese television reporter Jorge Arantes was keeping the pages of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone as a “hostage” and feared he would burn them.

After finding out where the manuscript was, he began secretly photocopying a few pages each day to make sure his work wouldn’t get lost.

She made the reveals on ‘The Witch Trials of JK Rowling’ podcast, with the first two episodes released today.

During a teaser clip for the podcast, The author can be heard saying that she “never set out to upset anyone” as she discusses controversial comments about transgender rights.

The Harry Potter author also opened up about having a “hugely traumatic” miscarriage and the death of her mother.

The 57-year-old sat down with American writer Megan Phelps-Roper at her Edinburgh home to talk about her life, including her views on the transgender community.

Rowling married Arantes in 1992 after meeting him in a bar in Portugal where she had moved to work as a teacher after her mother’s death.

The couple had a daughter, Jessica, who is now 29 years old, but left in 1993 after Arantes dragged her out of her home and attacked her.

She said: ‘The marriage had become very violent and very controlling. I was going through my bag every time I got home and I didn’t have the key to my front door.

“Living in a horrible state of stress because I had to act like I wasn’t going to go and I don’t think I’m a very good actor.

‘That’s a terrible way to live, and yet the manuscript kept growing, I had kept writing.

‘He knew what that manuscript meant to me because at one point he took the manuscript and hid it. That was his hostage.

“When I realized that I was definitely going to go, I would take a few pages of the manuscript to work every day, just a few pages so he wouldn’t notice something was missing, and I would photocopy it.

“Little by little in a closet in the staff room, little by little, a photocopied manuscript grew and grew because he suspected that if he couldn’t get away with everything he would burn it or take it hostage.

‘That manuscript meant a lot to me and it was what I prioritized saving.

“The only thing I prioritized beyond that was my daughter, but she was still inside me at that point, so she’s as safe as possible in that situation.”

Rowling spoke about his first marriage to Megan Phelps-Roper, host of The Witch Trials of JK Rowling podcast, which examines the backlash to the Edinburgh-based author’s views on gender identity.

Describing the night she walked out on Arantes, Rowling said: “There came a night where she got really mad at me and I broke down and said ‘I want to go’.”

“He got very violent and said, ‘You can leave but you’re not going to get Jessica, I’m going to keep her, I’m going to hide her.'”

So I fought and paid the price. There was a violent scene that ended with me lying in the street.

“I went to the police and filed a report and the next day I went back to the house with the police and found Jessica.”

The author said that she had fiercely protected her privacy after becoming famous due to her fears of being tracked by Arantes.

She revealed that he followed her to Edinburgh and entered the first house she bought with money from her publishing deal for her first Potter novel, which was published in 1997. She said: “I was so ill-prepared for what happened to me.” .

“I was changing faster than I could handle and all the time I had this fear lurking around because I know there’s someone out there who doesn’t wish me well.

‘The reason we left the first place was because my ex-husband came and broke in. Moving became quite a pressing problem at that time.

“I was trying to reconcile suddenly having a lot of press interest with really, really wanting to live under the radar for very specific reasons.

“I was living in a state of real tension that I couldn’t express to many people.”

Arantes previously admitted that he had been violent towards her the night she left.

He said: “She refused to go without Jessica and despite my telling her she could come back for her in the morning, there was a violent struggle.”

I had to drag her out of the house at five in the morning and I admit that I slapped her very hard in the street.

Rowling, who has been married to Dr. Neil Murray since 2001, finished the Potter novel while living as a single mother in Edinburgh.

During the teaser clip posted to social media, Rowling can be heard saying, “I never set out to upset anyone.”

“However, I did not feel uncomfortable stepping off my pedestal.”

Speaking of fans who have accused Rowling of “ruining her legacy,” the author said: “You couldn’t have misunderstood me more profoundly.”

In June 2020, the author wrote an essay in which she expressed “deep concerns” about the consequences of trans activism.

The Free Press described the seven-episode podcast as an “audio documentary that examines some of the most contentious conflicts of our time through the life and career of the world’s most successful author.”

The podcast host, Ms. Phelps-Roper, is the granddaughter of Fred Phelps, pastor of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church.

The church was made famous by a 2007 documentary by Louis Theroux about the extremist group, dubbed “America’s Most Hated Family.”

After escaping from the church in 2012, Ms. Phelps-Roper became a political activist and journalist.