Finished Hallows 9 yrs ago today. Celebrated by graffiti-ing a bust in my hotel room. Never do this. It's wrong. pic.twitter.com/HsqQKydY68
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) January 11, 2016
Imagine you’re an international best-selling author. You’ve spent the past 17 years of your life writing fictional stories about a boy wizard. In fact, you’ve just finished writing the final sentence of the final book about said boy wizard. You’re in a fancy-ass hotel room, replete with a marble bust, so you know it’s fancy. What do you do next? Weep wildly? Pop champagne? Tear down the curtains, scrawl blood on the walls and light several things on fire, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, according to rock stars? If you’re J.K. Rowling, you take a page from the latter playbook and commit small-scale vandalism.
On Twitter yesterday, Rowling admitted to her minor crime, nine years after the fact. “Finished Hallows 9 yrs ago today,” she wrote, referring to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final book in the Harry Potter series (…for now). “Celebrated by graffiti-ing a bust in my hotel room.” Her “graffiti” was to-the-point and pithy, unlike the books themselves, which often spanned upwards of 800 pages: “J.K. Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this hotel room (552) on 11th Jan 2007.”
According to The Telegraph, Rowling was not remotely punished for her act of vandalism. Instead, “the hotel suite was renamed in her honour after the secret venue for her final chapter was revealed in a TV documentary.” It’s since become a “pilgrimage site” for “wealthy fans across the world” who can afford to pay £1,000 a night to sleep near a desecrated bust. Lest young fans be inspired to start scribbling all over the busts in their rooms, though, Rowling added on Twitter, “Never do this. It’s wrong.”
