this post was submitted on 29 May 2025
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[–] tal@lemmy.today 42 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Rowling donated £70,000 (roughly $88,200) to the anti-trans group For Women Scotland in 2024 after it lost its challenge to a 2018 Scottish law that legally recognized trans women as women. The group appealed its case to the U.K. Supreme Court, which ruled last month that trans women aren’t considered women under the nation’s Equality Act.

Rowling responded to the decision by posting a picture of her having a drink and smoking a cigar, with the text “I love it when a plan comes together.”

Setting aside the question of the cause itself, I'm not sure that taunting people is a good way to effect social change.

kagis for image

https://metro.co.uk/2025/04/17/jk-rowling-says-i-love-a-plan-comes-together-supreme-court-result-22927389/

JK Rowling smokes cigar as she celebrates court ruling on yacht in the Bahamas

Yeah, that seems likely to antagonize people.

[–] drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world 41 points 5 days ago (3 children)
[–] tal@lemmy.today 17 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I was gonna say that some people who smoke cigars use them on a very occasional basis, but it sounds like she's had a very long-running nicotine habit:

https://blog.lucy.co/10-people-who-smoked/

  1. J. K. Rowling

Not only did J. K. Rowling create the Harry Potter universe, she did it while smoking so much that she experienced symptoms of nicotine overdose [1]. Rowling had been smoking since her teen years where she was frequently caught smoking at bus stops with boys in leather jackets [2]. But the author quit smoking in 2000 with a combination of nicotine gum and the popular game, Candy Crush, to keep her mind occupied when she'd otherwise be giving in to cigarette cravings [3].

I suppose she un-quit at some point.

EDIT:

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/0600-times-treneman.html

The only time I see her inhale is around a Marlboro Light. She claims this was to be a non-smoking day. I'm not sure how this squares with five cigarettes in two hours.

https://thefriendlyeditor.com/2015/06/16/rowling-writing-harry-potter/

Rowling has been open about her struggle to write book four, which nearly caused her to have “a nervous breakdown”:

That was the period where I was chewing Nicorette. And then I started smoking again, but I didn’t stop the Nicorette. And I swear on my children’s lives, I was going to bed at night and having palpitations and having to get up and drink some wine to put myself into a sufficient stupor.

2024:

https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1797759158688854150?lang=en

I'll be a smoker til the day I die, even if I never have another cigarette. If I could choose one drug I could take forever without consequences as long as I gave up all others - caffeine, alcohol etc - it would be nicotine.

[–] mystique@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 5 days ago

Even her drug choices are deplorable!

[–] Wahots@pawb.social 7 points 5 days ago

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it becomes a three pack a day hobby for her and a number of higher ups who are currently screwing everything up. Menthols, too. Gotta speed run this shit.

Honestly, that photo is what sets me over the edge. Don't get me wrong, I already hated the bitch and hoped she died horribly and soon, but that picture makes me want to take the timeline into my own hands. I'm not a violent person, but sometimes exceptions must be made.

[–] vga@sopuli.xyz 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Yeah, that's just dumb.

Roughly a similar move was made by the far right finance minister in Finland. When she was faced with the challenge of communicating the need for austerity, did she use empathy? No, she went for twitter posts where she laughed aloud with scissors in hand.