Author J.K. Rowling took a shot Friday at Russian President Vladimir Putin after he tried to compare Russian artists to Rowling and her fight with the “cancel culture” mob.
Putin said Friday that Russian composers and writers were being canceled, according to the BBC. “They are trying to cancel a thousand-year-old country,” Putin reportedly said. “They are banning Russian writers and books.”
“The proverbial ‘cancel culture’ has become a cancellation of culture,” Putin said, before defending Rowling.
“J.K. Rowling was canceled because she, a writer of books that have sold millions of copies around the world, didn’t please fans of so-called gender freedoms,” Putin said, according to the BBC.
Rowling responded on Twitter, writing, “critiques of Western cancel culture are possibly not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians for the crime of resistance, or who jail and poison their critics #IStandWithUkraine.” (RELATED: Authors Quit J.K. Rowling’s Talent Agency After She Defends Concept Of Biological Sex)
Critiques of Western cancel culture are possibly not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians for the crime of resistance, or who jail and poison their critics. #IStandWithUkraine https://t.co/aNItgc5aiW
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 25, 2022
Rowling came under fire numerous times, having retweeted in 2020 an article about “people who menstruate.” Rowling said “people who menstruate. I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”
Rowling also made a public statement in 2019 regarding biological sex and has since been labeled as transphobic.