JK Rowling reveals ex husband Jorge Arantes held 'Harry Potter' manuscript 'hostage' to stop her from leaving him
EDINBURGH, UNITED KINGDON: The first 'Harry Potter' book manuscript was kept hidden by JK Rowling's abusive ex-husband in an effort to keep her from leaving him, she has revealed. Portuguese TV reporter Jorge Arantes kept the pages of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone 'hostage.'
As she found the manuscript, she would secretly photocopy a few pages every day to make sure her work was not lost. She made the revelations during the podcast, "The Witch Trials of JK Rowling," whose first two episodes were released on Tuesday, February 21.
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'That was his hostage'
Following the death of her mother, Rowling relocated to Portugal to work as a teacher. It was there that she met Arantes, whom she later married in 1992. The 57-year-old sat down with US writer Megan Phelps-Roper at her home in Edinburgh, describing the violence she experienced in her first marriage.
"The marriage had turned very violent and very controlling," she said narrating how her ex would search her handbag while she never kept the key to her from the door. "I had continued to write. He knew what that manuscript meant to me because at a point he took the manuscript and hid it. That was his hostage," Rowling said, adding that how she would fail to act in a way that would suggest she wasn't leaving him. "I don't think I am a very good actor," she told the podcast.
Rowling said, the manuscript meant so much to her and it was the thing that she "prioritized saving' beside her daughter, "at that point she was still inside me so she is as safe as she can be in that situation." She added, "When I realized I was definitely going to go, I would take a few pages of the manuscript into work every day, just a few pages so he wouldn’t realize anything was missing, and I would photocopy it." She would keep the photocopied manuscript in the cupboard which "grew and grew", "because I suspected that if I wasn’t able to get out with everything he would burn it or take it and hold it hostage."
'You can leave but you’re not getting Jessica'
Describing the night she walked out on Arantes, she said, "There came a night where he became very angry with me and I cracked and I said ‘I want to leave’. He became very violent and he said ‘You can leave but you’re not getting Jessica, I’m keeping her, I will hide her’. So I put up a fight and I paid the price", She said. "There was a violent scene which terminated with me lying in the street. I went to the police and filed a complaint and the next day went back to the house with the police and got Jessica."
After becoming popular, she revealed Arantes had followed her to Edinburgh and broken into the first home she bought with money from her publishing deal for her debut Harry Potter novel, which was published in 1997. "...I had this lurking fear because I know there is someone out there who does not wish me well." Rowling said, "The reason we left the first place was my ex-husband arrived and broke in."
'I was living in a state of real tension I couldn’t express to many people'
She described that she had to live under the radar for very concrete relasons despite a lot of press interest, "I was trying to reconcile suddenly having a lot of press interest with really, really wanting to live under the radar for very concrete reasons. I was living in a state of real tension I couldn’t express to many people."
Arantes as per Daily Mail has previously admitted he had been violent towards her on the night she left. "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."