Pedro Pascal and J.K. Rowling have been making headlines over the past week after a Vanity Fair interview addressed earlier remarks The Mandalorian star made about Rowling's relentless anti-trans crusade.
Now, Rowling has responded.
But first, let's back up and take a look at the bigger picture of why these two are going at it in the first place.
How did the JKR vs Pedro Pascal feud begin?
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In April 2025, Rowling made a cruel post celebrating a Supreme Court ruling in the UK defining "sex" as referring to biological sex rather than gender identity.
"I love it when a plan comes together," she wrote on X, sharing a picture of her smoking a cigar with a glass of what appears to be whiskey in hand.
It sparked plenty of backlash, including an Instagram video from activist Tariq Raouf urging people to boycott all things Harry Potter to send a message that transphobia doesn't pay.
In the comments of that post, Pascal chimed in: "Awful disgusting SHIT is exactly right. Heinous LOSER behavior."
Pascal addresses his remarks in Vanity Fair
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The Last of Us star's comments went viral as fans praised him for once again standing up in support of trans rights and transphobes cried about it.
In June, Vanity Fair published a lengthy interview with Pascal that included a quick conversation about his decision to speak out against Rowling and the larger response to it.
"The one thing that I would say I agonized over a little bit was just, 'Am I helping? Am I fucking helping?'" he admitted. "It's a situation that deserves the utmost elegance so that something can actually happen, and people will actually be protected."
This is a good opportunity to point out that Pascal does have a personal reason to care about the constant attacks against trans people. He's very close with his younger sister, Lux, who came out as trans in 2021.
"Listen, I want to protect the people I love," he added when speaking with Vanity Fair. "But it goes beyond that. Bullies make me fucking sick."
Rowling lashes out at Pascal
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Despite having no qualms throwing her considerable influence and finances around to turn the tides against trans people, Rowling has repeatedly shown that she's unable to take criticism for her cruelties without petty responses. And she proved it again after Pascal's interview circulated online.
At the end of June, she posted an image containing a picture of Pascal and the headline of a gayety article covering his interview: "Pedro Pascal Shuts Down Rowling, Defends Trans Rights, and Reflects on Fame at 50."
"Can't say I feel very shut down, but keep at it, Pedro," she wrote. "God loves a trier."
As Ray Flook at Bleeding Cool pointed out, her remarks didn't make much sense. She seemed to be interpreting a headline summarizing the content as Pascal himself claiming to have shut her down. It's also unclear what her assertion that "God loves a trier" really has to do with anything.
Maybe it's time for Rowling to put down that whiskey glass — or get all that mold checked out.
Martina Navratilova inserts herself into the drama
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Once beloved of the LGBTQ+ community, former tennis pro turned outspoken TERF Martina Navratilova also weighed in. “Another Johnny come lately telling women to STFU,” she wrote on Twitter.
This isn’t the first time Navritilova has weighed in on celebrities who have criticized the author’s anti-trans screeds, previously telling Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe to “Just be quiet Daniel. Be quiet.” in a tweet after he wrote a moving essay or The Trevor Project, in which he wrote “Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people…”
So really, her bandwagoning here is hardly a surprise, though it remains disappointing.