If you cared to know a little bit more about the bestselling author that brought the gift of magic into our lives, you’d know that her first marriage was abusive and not in any way ideal.
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In fact, it was so abusive that for sometime, during her late twenties/early thirties, she considered suicide. Fortunately for her and for the world, she got out of that mess and was able to find the strength to complete her first story.
It wasn’t an easy journey, but the adventure of Harry Potter was one that brought joy to many homes.
J.K. Rowling – Reveals How Her Ex-husband Manipulated Her So She Wouldn’t Leave
J.K. Rowling recently opened up about her nightmarish life with her ex-husband and how that threatened her future as the great novelist at the time.
She recalled feeling fear that her first husband Jorge Arantes would cease or burn her “Harry Potter” manuscript to keep her from leaving him.
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In the first episode of the “Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling” podcast, the global author remembered being in a “bad situation” with Arantes, including a “hugely traumatic” miscarriage that left her “not in a balanced state of mind.”
“The situation was a bad situation, but until you actually go through it, you don’t know what you would choose to do,” the 57-year-old said of her shortlived marriage to Arantes, which lasted from 1992 to 1995. “I left him twice before I left for good, and then I went back twice.”
She went on to detail how her marriage had “turned very violent and very controlling,” with Arantes “searching my handbag every time I [came] home.”
“I haven’t got a key to my own front door, because he’s gotta control the front door,” Rowling said. “He’s not a stupid person — I think he knew, or suspected, that I was gonna try and bolt again.”
She continued: “it was a horrible state of tension to live in because you have to act, and I don’t think I’m a very good actor; I don’t think I have a very good poker face. And that was a huge strain — to act as though I wasn’t going. That’s a terrible way to live, and yet the manuscript kept growing; I had continued to write.”
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J.K. Rowling – Accuses Her Ex-husband of Holding Her Manuscript “Hostage” Because He Knew How Much It Would Hurt Her
She went on to accuse Arantes of purposely taking something she treasured very much, saying, “In fact, he knew what that manuscript meant to me, because at a point, he took the manuscript and hid it. And that was his hostage.”
It got to the point where Rowling “would take a few pages of the manuscript into work every day, just a few pages so he wouldn’t realize anything was missing, and I would photocopy it,” immediately she came to the realization she had to leave Arantes for good.
“And gradually, in a cupboard in the staff room, bit by bit, the photocopied manuscript grew and grew and grew, because I suspected that if I wasn’t able to get out with everything, he would burn it or take it or hold it hostage,” she said.
Rowling explained that the manuscript “still meant so much to” her, and that “the only thing I prioritized beyond that, obviously, was my daughter [Jessica Rowling Arantes, now 29]. But at that point, she’s still inside me, so she’s as safe as she can be in that situation.”
In 1997, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”, the first book in the series, would go on to be published to a massive positive global reception.
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