London - "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling
has apologised to the family of a wheelchair-bound boy for
tweets in which she accused US President Donald Trump of
ignoring his proffered hand at a media event.
Re: my tweets about the small boy in a wheelchair whose proferred hand the president appeared to ignore in press footage, multiple /1
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 31, 2017
Rowling branded Trump a "monster of narcissism" after
footage of a July 24 news conference on healthcare showed the
president seemingly ignoring the three-year-old's hand, but
shaking other people's as he left the event.
Footage of Trump's entrance to the event, however, showed
the president stop to greet the boy and have a brief exchange
before he began speaking.
sources have informed me that that was not a full or accurate representation of their interaction. I very clearly projected my own /2
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 31, 2017
Saying she had discovered that what she had seen was not an
accurate representation of the encounter, Rowling tweeted: "I
very clearly projected my own sensitivities around the issue of
disabled people being overlooked or ignored onto the images I
saw".
to that boy or his family, I apologise unreservedly. These tweets will remain, but I will delete the previous ones on the subject. /4x
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 31, 2017
The author's apology was directed at the boy and his family,
and made no mention of Trump.
sensitivities around the issue of disabled people being overlooked or ignored onto the images I saw and if that caused any distress /3
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 31, 2017
Rowling, who has over 11 million Twitter followers, is
frequently critical of Trump and his administration on her
social media feed.
That man occupies the most powerful office in the free world and his daily outrages against civilised norms are having a corrosive effect /3
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 28, 2017
In the three days that elapsed between her original tweets
on July 28 and her apology, Rowling had been the subject of
online criticism, much of it from Trump supporters, for her
comments on the incident.