J.K. Rowling’s Reputation No Longer In Shambles After ‘Daily Mail’ Lawsuit Victory

J.K. Rowling is no longer concerned about her reputation after winning a lawsuit against the Daily Mail. According to BBC News, the Daily Mail had to apologize over an article they wrote about the Harry Potter author regarding the time she spent in London as a single mother.

The Daily Mail published an article with the headline,”How JK Rowling’s sob story about her past as a single mother has left the churchgoers who cared for her upset and bewildered.” According to the author, the publication misrepresented her and caused great distress and embarrassment.

In the article, it was suggested that Rowling had been lying about her hard times as a single mother. It’s said that Rowling had given “a knowingly false account of her time as a single mother in Edinburgh.” The article went on to say that she “falsely and inexcusably accused her fellow churchgoers of behaving in a bigoted, unchristian manner towards her, of stigmatizing her and cruelly taunting her for being a single mother.”

After the article ran in 2013, the Daily Mail paid damages to Rowling. The article materialized after Rowling wrote a post for a single parents charity called Gingerbread.

J.K. said that the article was based on a picture which was misrepresented and “false.”

The apology from the Daily Mail was read in court as part of a libel settlement that was reached. This was a victory for J.K. Rowling, with her solicitor saying, “In these circumstances and this statement having been read out in court, [Rowling] now considers that she has been fully vindicated, her reputation has been restored and accordingly is happy to bring these proceedings to a close.”

The apology from the Daily Mail is as follows.

“Our September 28, 2013 article…suggested that J.K. Rowling had made a knowingly false and inexcusable claim in an article for the Gingerbread charity that people at her church had stigmatized her and cruelly taunted her for being a single mother. In fact, Ms. Rowling recounted only one incident where a visitor to the church stigmatized and taunted her on a particular day.”

The apology to J.K. Rowling continued, “We accept that Ms. Rowling’s article did not contain any false claims and apologize for any contrary suggestion and have agreed to pay substantial damages to Ms. Rowling, which she is donating to charity, and a contribution to her legal costs.”

[Photo by Ben A. Pruchnie / Getty Images]