J K Rowling was tricked by Russian pranksters. ( Credit: Bruce Glikas/Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic)
JK Rowling was fooled by two Russian pranksters who had her believe she was on video call with Ukraine president Vlodymyr Zelensky.
Popular Russian prankster duo Vovan and Lexus posted a video of their call with JK Rowling, who appears to believe she is speaking with the Ukranian president. ‘Zelensky’ cannot be seen on the Zoom call, while Rowling leaves her camera on.
In the video, the pretenders ask Rowling questions pertaining to all things Harry Potter, relating them back to the Russian war on Ukraine.
At one point, the duo ask Rowling questions about Dumbledore’s sexuality.
“Tell me a secret – I’m interested as your fan. Is Dumbledore gay? I won’t tell anyone. And who did he sleep with?” they ask.
Rowling replies: “I said in 2007 that I always saw Dumbledore as gay. That’s the truth and it was a big scandal at the time that I said it. But yeah, that’s how I still see it. He’s an old man when we see him in the books so his love life is no longer very important.”
They respond with a reference to the ongoing controversy surrounding Rowling and her numerous anti-trans statements, saying: “I will never tell this to anyone. Hopefully not with a transgender person.”
Elsewhere, the pranksters tell JK Rowling that Ukrainian soldiers were writing “Avada Kedavra” (a killing curse in the Harry Potter books) on Ukrainian missiles.
They also tell Rowling, who appears to grows steadily more uncomfortable through the call, that the scar on Harry Potter’s forehead resembles the Russian ‘Z’ military symbol, and ask if she would consider changing it to the Ukrainian trident to show her support.
She responds: “I will look into that. It might be good for me to do something with that myself on social media because I think that will get into the newspapers. I didn’t know they were doing that but that’s something I can address personally.”
(Credit: Ben Gabbe/Getty Images)
‘Zelensky’ then asks Rowling her thoughts on imposing sanctions on Russian actor Aleksandr Kuznetsov, who appeared in the most recent Fantastic Beasts movie as Helmut.
Rowling seems to consider this and replies: “Fantastic Beasts has been a very interesting experience. I’ll certainly talk to people and see what we can do.”
They also tell Rowling that donations to Ukraine from her Lumos Foundation to aid children trapped in orphanages should in fact be used to buy weapons.
Rowling responds: “We’ll look after the kids, but I really want Ukraine to have all of the arms it needs.”
The prank ended when the pair turned on their camera to introduce the “The Order of Ukrainian Phoenix”, and a group of people were seen wearing t-shirts with the slogan “Only Putin”.
A spokesperson for Rowling has since condemned the prank as “distasteful”, per The Independent.
They said: “JK Rowling was approached to talk about her extensive charitable work in Ukraine, supporting children and families who have been affected by the current conflict in the region. The video, which has been edited, is a distorted representation of the conversation.”
The duo posted the the interaction on their YouTube channel, but it has since disappeared and the full-length video can be found on The Rowling Library.