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The Internet Is Convinced They’ve Found the Source of J.K. Rowling’s Descent Into Bigotry

JK Rowling over a background of a moldy wall.

J.K. Rowling was once best known for being the author of the Harry Potter series, but in recent years, that legacy has been overshadowed by her virulent transphobia.

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Most recently, Rowling began attacking female Olympic Algerian boxer Imane Khelif after she won in a bout against Angela Carini of Italy. Rowling was one of several high-profile bigots to spread hateful misinformation falsely claiming Khelif is transgender. It was just the latest escalation in the campaign of bigotry that seems to have taken over Rowling’s life.

People are rightly condemning and mocking Rowling for her bigotry, and in doing so they’ve noticed something rather interesting. Rowling’s previous social media profile picture featured her sitting in her living room, with what looked to many like black mold on the walls behind her.

Is it really black mold? It could just be some scuffs or shadows, or a terrible home design choice, but it sure looks like black mold crawling up the walls of her home. Either way, social media has been having a field day with it.

Let’s not kid ourselves too much, as hilarious as the meme is. It’s almost certainly not black mold. Black mold spores can cause breathing difficulties and fungus infection, and there have been some high-profile cases in Britain recently of landlords leaving their tenants to suffer in mold-covered rooms. In 2020, a toddler died because of mold exposure, and it continues to be a serious issue affecting the lives of multiple people. But Rowling is a billionaire, and such issues do not affect her—or, most likely, concern her. (not that that makes her immune to their effects, of course …)

Rowling has now changed her profile picture to something even more bizarre. The new pic shows her sitting in front of what looks like a, uh, very noticeable piece of anatomy.

Is she trying to send some sort of garbled message to her equally hopeless fans? Who knows, but she’s rightly a laughingstock at the moment.

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Author
Sarah Barrett
Sarah Barrett (she/her) is a freelance writer with The Mary Sue who has been working in journalism since 2014. She loves to write about movies, even the bad ones. (Especially the bad ones.) The Raimi Spider-Man trilogy and the Star Wars prequels changed her life in many interesting ways. She lives in one of the very, very few good parts of England.

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