JK Rowling has reignited her bitter feud with Nicola Sturgeon by posting a foul-mouthed ‘review’ of the former Scottish First Minister’s new autobiography, scrawling “Are you f***ing kidding me???” across a page discussing women’s safety.
The Harry Potter author, who has a net worth of around £945million, shared an image of her annotated copy of ‘Frankly’ on social media today, focusing her tirade on a section where Sturgeon “opines on the need to make the ‘public sphere’ safe for women and girls.”
Rowling announced she might auction her scribbled-on copy to raise funds for women’s rights group For Women Scotland, adding: “Annotating as I read to review. NB: nobody who’s offended by swearing should bid.”
The latest clash comes just days after Sturgeon’s memoir hit shelves to fawning reviews comparing her to Barack Obama, with one critic dubbing it “the most insightful and stylishly open memoir by a politician since Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father.”
“I am available to review Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir,” Rowling had announced tongue-in-cheek last month. “No fee required, as long as you don’t edit out the swear words.”
The renewed hostilities follow a car crash TV interview where Sturgeon struggled to answer fresh questions about transgender prisoner Isla Bryson, eventually conceding the double rapist is “a biological male” – a stark reversal from her previous stance.
“We’ve lost all sense of rationality in [the gender] debate,” Sturgeon said in the interview, prompting Rowling to fire back on X: “Only one side has lost rationality. Only one side pretends there’s more than two sexes. Only one side lets male rapists into women’s prisons. Only one side supports child sterilisation. Yours.”
The feud between Scotland’s two most prominent women dates back more than three years, centring on Sturgeon’s controversial gender recognition reforms which would have allowed people to self-identify their gender from age 16 without medical checks.
In 2022, Rowling wore a T-shirt branding Sturgeon a “destroyer of women’s rights” in protest against the Scottish Government’s gender recognition reform laws, which were later blocked by Westminster. Sturgeon responded by calling for people to “treat each other with respect.”
The Isla Bryson case proved a turning point in Scotland’s gender debate. Bryson, who was born Adam Graham and convicted of raping two women in 2016 and 2019, was initially sent to Cornton Vale women’s prison after transitioning, sparking public outrage.
Sturgeon was forced to intervene, announcing Bryson would be moved to a male prison. She later admitted she “should have been much more straightforward” about the issue, telling ITV: “I think what I would say now is anybody who commits the most heinous male crime against women probably forfeits the right to be the gender of their choice.
The admission marked a significant climbdown for the former First Minister, who had championed self-identification laws that critics warned would be exploited by predators.
Rowling compared Sturgeon to Pontius Pilate after a landmark Supreme Court ruling in April clarified that a woman is biologically female for the purposes of equalities laws. When Sturgeon refused to comment on the ruling, Rowling mocked her silence by sharing a social media selfie of the Glasgow MSP in the gym on Easter Monday, calling her “Pontius Pilates.
“If Sturgeon had been around in the 1500s she’d have been right there lighting the pyres,” Rowling said last month after Sturgeon chaired a discussion about Scottish witch trials. “Ungodly women like this not only blight the crops and turn the milk, they almost certainly put a spell on my husband which made him pilfer all the tithes.”
Sturgeon has suggested she would debate Rowling on trans rights but claimed the author wouldn’t participate. “I will debate with many people, but I don’t think JK Rowling would be willing to do that,” she said while promoting her book.
The former First Minister accused “forces on the far right” of weaponising the trans debate and claimed she had received “probably the most horrific abuse on this issue” which was “deeply misogynistic.
Rowling has consistently defended women’s sex-based rights and established a “fighting fund” to help women facing employment tribunals for their views on gender. She also founded Beira’s Place in Edinburgh, a sexual assault support service for women, run by women.
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay said of Sturgeon’s latest comments: “Frankly, Nicola Sturgeon must be delusional if she thinks the women of Scotland will swallow this drivel. Her absurd ideological belief in self-ID collapses with her belated mealy-mouthed admission that this rapist is a man.”
As the war of words escalates, Rowling appears determined to deliver her promised review of Sturgeon’s memoir – complete with all the swear words her adversary’s policies have provoked.
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