JK Rowling spoke about the difficult relationship with her first husband

J.K. Rowling's first husband, George Arantes, once "stole" the manuscript of a Harry Potter novel in order to keep her from getting a divorce. On the first episode of the Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling, the writer recalled the difficult relationship with Arantes and, in particular, the episodes of their life together, which, in the end, led the couple to part. “The situation was bad, but until you really get through it, you don’t know what to do,” Rowling, 57, said of her first marriage, which lasted from 1992 to 1995. . "I left him twice before leaving for good, and came back twice."

She added that her relationship with Arantes at some point "became very aggressive and with a strong controlling element." The writer's then-husband searched her bag every time she returned home. "I didn't have a front door key because he controlled the front door," Joan admitted. "He's not a stupid person, I think he knew or suspected that I would try to escape again."

Rowling noted that the tension during that period of her life forced her to play the role of an exemplary wife, but according to the writer, she was never a good actress and did not know how to put on a good face with a bad game. In addition, during this time she continued to work on the first novel about the wizard boy, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. “In fact, he knew what the manuscript meant to me, because at some point he took it and hid it. And that was his hostage."

This happened at a time when Rowling was trying to "work on several pages of the manuscript at once a day, so he did not understand what was missing from it, and I made copies of them." In the end, Joan made the decision to leave Arantes forever. “Little by little, in the dressing room closet, step by step, the copy of my manuscript grew and grew, because I suspected that I would not be able to take all the things - he either burned it or continued to hold it,” she recalled. But not only about the manuscript were concerns. “... there was also my daughter (Jessica Rowling Arantes, now she is 29). But she was inside of me, so she was as safe as it was possible to be in this situation, ”added Joan.

Let me remind you that the first novel "Harry Potter and the Magic Stone" was published in 1997. Its success and subsequent sequels catapulted Rowling into the world's elite of writers. In 2001, Rowling married a second time to Neil Murray, a physician, and had two children with him. In 2020, George Arantes admitted in an interview with reporters that the marriage with Joan broke up through his fault.