Even if you're one with the Wizarding World and received your invitation to Hogwarts ages
ago, there's a chance you don't know everything about the author who made all that magic happen.
Thanks to Twitter, the reclusive J.K.
Rowling has come out of her shell quite a bit in recent years — but there are still
a lot of common misconceptions about her story.
Here's what you might know about the muggle mom who turned her writing pen into a wand
and cast a spell on the entire world.
Inauspicious start
Any wizard worth their potion already knows that J.K.
Rowling was a depressed, struggling single mother when she first came up with her Harry
Potter novel ideas.
But somehow a rumor developed over the years that Rowling was homeless while she wrote
the popular series, even going as far as saying she lived in her car.
Rowling has put the rumors to rest, saying in a commencement speech given to Harvard
graduates that she was forced to live off state welfare.
And I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless."
According to an interview she did with The New Yorker, Rowling was only in bad living
conditions for a matter of months before a friend helped her get a nicer apartment.
So yes, there's certainly a rags-to-riches story here, but it's not as extreme as many believe.
With her daughter by her side, Rowling would often spend hours in her brother-in-law's
cafe, writing and creating some of our favorite witches and wizards at Hogwarts.
While it was certainly a low point in her life, much of her depression at the time had
to do with the death of her mother, and the end of her marriage to a journalist she met in Portugal.
She has been surprisingly open about this time in her life, even mentioning in several
interviews that her depression actually inspired the series's creepy, soul-sucking, happiness-draining
Dementor characters.
She spoke with ABC News about her thoughts on depression:
"And that's just characterized for me by a numbness, a coldness, and an inability to
believe that you will feel happy again."
And with that inspiration, the series' edgy flirtation with extreme darkness was born.
Generosity of spirit
It's been over a decade since Rowling was named the first billionaire author by Forbes,
but her financial situation has since changed drastically.
No, she isn't broke, and she's not back on welfare.
She's still doing quite well for herself, but in 2012, she was placed on the slightly
insulting Forbes Dropoff List after giving away a lot of her money to charity.
It seems the author has donated over $160 million since making her claim to fame, a
decision that has hardly affected her, other than no longer being considered a billionaire.
One of her biggest charities has been the Lumos Foundation, which strives to protect
children without homes who end up in institutions.
She spoke about her decision to create the foundation in an interview with The Sunday
Times, saying she was largely influenced by a disturbing story they ran in 2004 about
a Czech orphanage that kept children in cages.
Plus, according to the Lumos Foundation's website, most children that end up in orphanages
aren't actually orphans — many have disabilities that their families can't afford to treat.
So Lumos takes donations and works with government programs, and even individual families, to
help them with whatever burdens they might be experiencing, so these kids can stay with
their parents and out of orphanages.
Also, most people don't know that her two short books, Quidditch Through The Ages and
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, were originally written as part of a donation to
the UK anti-poverty charity Comic Relief.
All earnings from book sales went to the charity, making millions for the fundraiser.
So, while Forbes might criticize the famed writer for her drastic drop in wealth by adding
her to their seriously unnecessary "ha ha you're not worth billions anymore" list, she's
still a hundred-millionaire who does her best to make a positive impact on the world.
So that's pretty good.
Missing a moonwalk
Way back in 2010, Rowling made her first appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where she revealed
that the late Michael Jackson had approached her about producing a Harry Potter-themed
musical.
Can you imagine?
Picture watching a Quidditch tournament play out on stage, while the melody to "Beat It"
hums on in the background.
While she didn't give a straight answer as to why she turned down the King of Pop's sort-of
ridiculous proposal, she did mention how she agreed to having Harry Potter World popping
up at Universal's theme parks, because of their thorough and extraordinary proposal.
So perhaps Jackson's presentation was, to borrow one of MJ's iconic phrases, BAD.
Interestingly enough, the Jackson-Rowling connection doesn't start and end there — it
turns out, one of the reasons she chose to avoid zombies when creating the creatures
protecting the locket Horcrux in Half-Blood Prince, was because of Jackson's "Thriller"
video.
She explained on Pottermore that zombies were old news and had been done already, and that
she is "… part of the 'Thriller' generation; to me, a zombie will always mean Michael Jackson
in a bright red bomber jacket."
So, instead of zombies, she created corpses under the control of the Dark Lord, called
Inferi.
It's kinda the same thing, but with much less choreography.
Branching out
After wrapping up the Harry Potter series, Rowling decided to put her career writing
for kids on hold so she could attempt to write her first novel for adults.
The Casual Vacancy was received with some seriously mixed reviews.
The New York Times called it "…not only disappointing — it's dull."
What's more, it's a very adult book, with rape and domestic abuse scenes that Times
critic claimed "… reads like an odd mash-up of a dark soap opera."
But regardless of what critics had to say, the book still managed to fly off shelves
in both the U.K. and the U.S., likely due to Rowling's name being on the cover.
It seems that even the book's poor reviews couldn't put a dent in Rowling's popularity,
and HBO agreed.
A few years after the release of The Casual Vacancy, HBO released a miniseries in Britain
under the same title, knowing that pretty much anything with Rowling's name on it will
bring in a ton of money.
On the other hand...
Pen name pretentious
Fans probably already know that the reason JoAnne Rowling was published under J.K.
Rowling was that her first British publisher asked her to just use her initials when the
first edition of The Philosopher's Stone was released.
They reasoned that the book would only appeal to boys, but that they wouldn't read it if
they knew it was written by a woman.
She explained her choice to Oprah:
"So they said to me, could we use your initials.
I said fine, I only have one initial, I don't have a middle name.
So I took my favorite grandmother's name, Kathleen."
So when Rowling chose to write a crime-fiction series under the name Robert Galbraith, it
wasn't the first time she changed her name so potential readers would think she was a
man.
The Cuckoo's Calling was released with a small number of books printed, and sold just 500
hardcover copies in its first few months in bookstores.
It was reported that some stores were even contemplating sending books back to the publisher
— until the author's true identity was revealed by The Sunday Times.
Immediately after, sales magically skyrocketed, because unpopular literature reads so much
better when someone you like writes it.
Even though Rowling seemed disappointed that her disguise was short lived, it's hard not
to wonder if this information was intentionally leaked to increase sales.
Either way, bad news for actual obscure authors without a billion-dollar real name to fall
back on.
A family reunion
While many view Rowling's life as some sort of fairytale, with the idyllic ending that
brought her love, success, and wealth, there's also a lot of grief and heartache that the
public may not know about.
Rowling didn't have the best relationship with her father growing up, and according
to The New Yorker, she cut off all contact with him in 2003.
More often than not, the novelist has managed to dodge questions regarding the details of
their estrangement, but her father was almost too eager to share what happened.
Well, his side of the story, at least.
Peter Rowling has been rumored to claim that his daughter wouldn't bail out his burger
van business, or assist him in any way when it went out of business.
At first glance, that seems hard to believe, since she's not only loaded, but loves to
give her money away to the less fortunate.
However, it was also reported that, at the time of their estrangement, Peter had put
several first editions of his daughter's books up for sale, all which were gifted to him
— one was even a Father's Day present signed "Lots of love from your first born."
That book alone — which was a first-edition copy of Goblet of Fire — sold for an absurd
$48,000.
Now, understandably, Rowling was irked by the sale, and now you see why "help Pop's burger van"
wasn't high on her to-do list.
Apparently the two made peace in 2012 after nearly a decade of silence, but the reports
seem suspicious, as they're all flooded with quotes from Peter, and Rowling herself has
never commented on it.
Also, her father's claims of reconciliation conveniently popped up after rumors began
circulating that one of the more offensive characters in The Casual Vacancy was based on him.
All in all, it sounds like a cheap attempt at repairing his reputation, but what do we know?
We've never run a burger van.
Take a stand
For a long time, J.K.
Rowling's Twitter feed lay dormant, with the simple message that she was putting pen to
paper and didn't have time to maintain a digital presence.
She's since done a complete 180 on that note and constantly posts about her interests,
from fielding fan questions about her books to championing her hometown football teams
to engaging in heated political debates with celebrities.
She's since made a lot of enemies online — she and controversial YouTube star PewDiePie,
for example, have a shared distaste for one another that they're each all too happy to
talk about.
And she's definitely not a pal to Piers Morgan, whose right-wing leanings have rubbed her
the wrong way and culminated in a pretty epic Twitter battle.
The most surprising bit of fallout from her sudden online availability, though, is with
her own fan-base, many of whom just don't agree with her liberal perspective on world
issues.
Rowling, a consistently harsh critic of US President Donald Trump, has even led some
former fans to destroy their copies of her books and DVDs.
For her part, the negative response has only prompted even more zingers.
She's also become the subject of an internet petition to house Syrian refugees as a result
of her vocal support of their current perils.
The petition, which began after author Mike Cernovich offered to fly in 100 refugees to
her home, in response to her sympathy to them.
Supporters of this idea ran with it and created a petition that challenges the writer to take
in a minimum of 18 refugees for at least eight years.
It goes on to say that her eighteen spare bedrooms should be put to use during this
crisis, and even specifies that she should have to take in at least 14 male refugees,
as roughly 75 percent of current refugees are men.
Given her propensity to give away cash for the greater good, chances are she's pitching
in already by opening her pocketbook instead of her home, though.
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