NICOLA Sturgeon has hit out at both JK Rowling and Joanna Cherry, claiming the pair are “obsessed” with her.
Speaking to Iain Dale for an All Talk show at the Edinburgh Fringe on Saturday, the former first minister also called Cherry’s book – which focuses on Scottish politics from 2015 to 2025 – “shit” and said she did not want to spend time reading it.
The comments came after Dale asked an audience-submitted question about whether there should be an “amnesty with JK Rowling”. The Harry Potter author had made headlines the previous day with an attack on Sturgeon, alleging that she had been “the blindest wife ever to enjoy the fruits of a fraudster husband’s theft”.
Sturgeon said: “I'll say this as gently and as directly, I'm not at war with JK Rowling. She seems to be at war with me, so if there's going to be an amnesty, I think it's probably going to have to come from her.”
She went on: “We disagree on more than one thing. We disagreed on independence, we clearly disagree on trans rights – but my God, that woman is obsessed with me.
“I don't spend as much time thinking about her as she clearly does, so sorry.”
The former first minister was then asked what question she would put to Cherry, who was an SNP MP from 2015 to 2024.
Sturgeon said: “Again, somebody else who seems to have an obsession with me that I'm afraid is not reciprocated. It's like an unrequited obsession.”
She added: “It's not a question, it's a challenge, right. Can she get through more than, I don't know, 30 seconds of an answer to any question without talking about me?”
Sturgeon then joked that when she had seen that Cherry would be speaking to Dale for an All Talk show on August 10, she had thought “Oh, I'm getting two bites – I was going to say two bites of the cherry – but I'm getting two shows this year.
“I'm getting my own, and I'm getting hers about me.”
Asked if she had read Cherry’s book, Sturgeon appeared to swear, before saying she had not. The former SNP leader went on: “I am an avid reader. One of the things that distresses me most, the older I get, is that realisation of all the books I'll never get to read.
“Why on earth would I spend time reading one that's shit?”
Both Rowling and Cherry are gender-critical activists who have been fierce critics of Sturgeon’s policies on trans rights.
As first minister, Sturgeon had led on gender reform – and successfully saw a bill on self-identification for trans people passed by the Scottish parliament with support from MSPs in all of Holyrood’s parties.
However, the Tory-run UK Government then blocked the bill from becoming law.
Responding, Cherry said: “It appears that the criticisms JK Rowling and I have made of Nicola Sturgeon’s politics and her behaviour, in particular her attack on the rights of women, have so discomforted her that rather than addressing them, she has resorted to a foul-mouthed rant.
“I think people can see through this.”
