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Everything you need to know about the Piers Morgan-J.K. Rowling Twitter war

By Heather Ciras Globe Staff,February 15, 2017, 4:43 p.m.
Piers Morgan (left) and J.K. Rowling
Piers Morgan (left) and J.K. RowlingAndrew Burton/Reuters/file2012; FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA/EPA

There’s nothing like a good Twitter feud, right? Snarky and catty and devoid of real repercussions (I mean, as long as it’s not POTUS).

If this kind of thing is up your alley, check out what’s been going on between J.K. Rowling, the billionaire creator of the “Harry Potter” empire and an outspoken critic of Donald Trump and Brexit, and Piers Morgan, the US editor-at-large of the Daily Mail, a former judge on “America’s Got Talent,” and a winner of “The Celebrity Apprentice.”

Here are the details on their huge row, as the Brits say.

How it began

On a recent episode of HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher,” Morgan debated with Australian comic Jim Jefferies about Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven majority Muslim countries. Jefferies is quite forceful in his critique of Morgan and his support of Trump. We can’t print the language in a family newspaper, but you can watch the NSFW video here:

Rowling then picked on Morgan by tweeting the video out to her almost 10 million followers, saying, again in terms unsuitable for a family newspaper, that it felt “satisfying” to watch Morgan being publicly told off.

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Back and forth, and back and forth

The two went back and forth a bit online, with Rowling calling Morgan “amoral,” and Morgan calling Rowling’s work “garbage.”

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To which Rowling replied: “Because you had a premonition that one day the author would roar with laughter at seeing you called out for your [expletive] on live TV?”

“Everything I said was factual,” Morgan tweeted. “If you think screaming ‘[EXPLETIVE] OFF!!!’ at me changes that, then you’re mistaken.”

Rowling also let loose this “Harry Potter” burn:

The Twitter war goes on a bit.

Bookstores get in on the action

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You have to give it to “Harry Potter” fans; they are a dedicated bunch. In addition to the usual mockery between Team Rowling and Team Morgan, a bookstore in London has begun to tweet the entire first volume of “Harry Potter” at Morgan. One line at a time.

They estimate it will take 32,567 tweets. They’re up to 545.

Morgan has noticed:

The bookstore’s owner told Sky News: “I’m doing it because Piers clearly spends all day on Twitter staring at his timeline. He clearly needs a bit of a break from all the abuse, so as he mentioned that he hasn’t read any J.K. Rowling, rather than having to tear himself away from Twitter to read it, I’d tweet him.”

Rowling trolls Morgan on Valentine’s Day:

Within a couple days, it seemed that Rowling had extracted herself from the whole thing while Morgan continued to argue with people on Twitter and retweet those who agreed with him. But then, on Valentine’s Day, she posted this:

To which Morgan replied:

Turns out, the author of the story was none other than Morgan himself, in a 2010 Daily Mail article titled “The 100 British celebrities who really matter by Pier Morgan.”

Morgan then denied he fell for it:

Family gets involved

Oddly enough, Morgan’s son Spencer got in on the fight on Wednesday, tweeting a photo of his “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” tattoo:

Wonder what ridiculousness could happen next? Oh wait!

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Heather Ciras can be reached at heather.ciras@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @heatherciras.

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