Where is JK Rowling's first husband Jorge Arantes now? A look at his abusive past and drug addiction
A storm of controversies seems to have clouded 'Harry Potter' author JK Rowling after the Black Lives Matter protests. A controversial tweet sparked the scandal and she was soon slammed as "insensitive" and canceled by the internet. Following the backlash, several actors from the 'Harry Potter' movies, including Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, raised their voice for the LGBTQ+ community. Later, Rowling penned down a long essay and shed light on the domestic violence she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband Jorge Arantes. Moreover, she also revealed how she was sexually assaulted in her 20s. While many fans stood in support of her with the hashtag #IStandWithJKR, her ex-husband Arantes, 50, spoke about the incident in a front-page interview for British tabloid The Sun.
"I slapped Joanne — but there was not sustained abuse. I'm not sorry for slapping her," he said, adding, "If she says that, that's up to her. It's not true I hit her." Reflecting on his own admission a decade ago from the same night that she had left him, he added, "Yes. It is true I slapped her. But I didn’t abuse her," Arantes said. Ever since the news did the rounds in the media, the biggest question circling around is: Who is Jorge Arantes and where is he now?
Before the 'Harry Potter' novels, Rowling moved to Porto, Portugal, to teach English as a foreign language and met Portuguese television journalist Arantes in a bar. The two found a shared interest in Jane Austen and started dating. On October 16, 1992, the pair was married and gave birth to their child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes. Before Jessica's birth, Rowling had suffered a miscarriage and the couple went their separate ways in November 1993. Rowling suffered domestic abuse and she opened up about it in a long blog post. "I’ve been in the public eye now for over twenty years and have never talked publicly about being a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor," she said and added, "This isn’t because I’m ashamed those things happened to me, but because they’re traumatic to revisit and remember. I also feel protective of my daughter from my first marriage. I didn’t want to claim sole ownership of a story that belongs to her, too."
Meanwhile, Arantes called the marriage "intense and passionate" and said, "We were always either in heaven or in hell," according to The Sun. Talking about the events of the horrific night in 1993, he said, "She refused to go without Jessica, and, despite my saying she could come back for her in the morning, there was a violent struggle. I had to drag her out of the house at five in the morning, and I admit I slapped her very hard in the street."
In December 1993, Rowling packed a suitcase and moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, with her daughter. In her bag were three chapters of what later became the widely-loved 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'. During that period, Rowling saw herself as a failure and even contemplated suicide. According to a report in Britain's Sunday Times newspaper, she said, "Mid-twenties life circumstances were poor and I really plummeted. The thing that made me go for help... was probably my daughter. She was something that earthed me, grounded me, and I thought, this isn't right, this can't be right, she cannot grow up with me in this state."
Her estranged husband arrived in Scotland, seeking both her and her daughter but Rowling slapped a restraining order and he was forced to return to Portugal. Rowling filed for divorce in August 1994 and completed her novel while living on state benefits. Meanwhile, Arantes plummetted into drug addiction and lost his job. In the 2000s, he gave a series of interviews in an attempt to get his daughter's custody while Rowling was on the verge of becoming one of the world's most beloved authors. According to The Mirror, his 70-year-old mother, Marilia Rodrigues, said that "he stole family heirlooms and jewelry to feed his drug habit". Reportedly, he has recovered from that phase now.
Earlier, in an interview with the Times, Rowling said, "Obviously, you do not leave a marriage after that very short period of time unless there are serious problems. I’m not the kind of person who bales out without there being serious problems. My relationship before that lasted seven years. I’m a long-term girl. And I had a baby with this man. But it didn’t work. And it was clear to me that it was time to go, and so I went. I never regretted it."
Rowling got married to Dr Neil Murray on December 26, 2001, in a private Scottish ceremony at her Killiechassie House. The couple has a son named David Gordon Rowling Murray.
Where is Jorge Arantes now? According to The Sun, he last resided in a small apartment in the Paris suburb of Clichy with his brother, Justino, a travel agent. After his interview, which has been slammed as "disgusting", he has been labeled as an abuser. "Anyone abusing anyone in any way is out of line. If a man abuses anyone, it's wrong. If a woman abuses anyone it's wrong. Any form of media, giving platforms to people like JK Rowling's ex-husband is bang out of line. The victims of abuse matter, not the perpetrators," one fan said and another user posted, "I can’t stand JK Rowling and her blatant transphobia, but The Sun tracking down her abusive ex-husband and giving him a platform to speak is absolutely disgraceful."