Fact Check
J.K. Rowling has been caught up in controversies before, but this fake tweet is not one of them. In June 2022, a purported screenshot of one of her tweets went viral, with many attributing it to the famed author of the “Harry Potter” series of books.
The alleged tweet came in response to the historic ruling on June 24, 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court voted to strike down Roe v. Wade via Planned Parenthood v. Casey, reversing federal abortion protections that had been in place for nearly 50 years. She allegedly wrote, "If you American birds could keep your legs closed then maybe you wouldn’t need abortions in the first place?"
However, her verified account never posted this tweet. We were unable to find evidence of this tweet on her timeline, and in archived versions of her Twitter profile.
Rowling did tweet about abortion access after the Supreme Court ruling in June and when reports of the ruling were leaked in May:
We reached out to Rowling’s team, and a representative confirmed that she “did not issue this tweet, it is a fake.”