Rowling, Inc., must be scrambling today in hopes of spinning what is perhaps the most embarrassing public gaffe by The Presence on record. In brief, a duo of Russian comedians named Vovan and Lexus were able to record a Zoom conversation with Rowling in which one played the part of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky; they not only fooled Rowling’s handlers but the author also clearly believed, despite the increasingly absurd requests made by the faux Zelensky, that she was speaking to the real deal.

TheRowlingLibrary summarized the humiliating call this way:

The prankster, claiming to be Zelenskyy, asked J.K. Rowling if it was possible to impose any sanctions on Russian actor Aleksandr Kuznetsov, who played Helmut in the latest Fantastic Beasts movie, at which the author replies “Fantastic Beasts has been a very interesting experience. I’ll certainly talk to people and see what we can do.” Later on, they explained to the author that Harry Potter’s scar looks like the “Z”, the symbol used by the Russian on their military vehicles, and ask her to change it to the Ukrainian trident. Rowling took notes and said “I will look at that. It might be good for me to do something with that myself on social media, because I think that will get into the newspapers.”

The conversation continued and the prankster told J.K. Rowling that they were writing “Avada Kedavra” on the Ukrainian missiles. They also asked for Boris Johnson’s gender and if Dumbledore was really gay. Then, they turned their webcam on to introduce the “The Order of Ukrainian Phoenix”, which was none other than a group of people pranking Rowling: their t-shirts said “Only Putin!” in Russian. To end the prank, the fake Zelenskyy asked Rowling to say “hello” to his two favourite Russian writers, Vovan and Lexus.

My three quick thoughts on this are available after the jump! Read More “Rowling Pranked by Russian Comedians”