‘Harry Potter’ author J.K. Rowling apologizes for spreading false Trump story

"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling was roundly criticized for a long rant she posted to Twitter Friday accusing President Trump of insensitively ignoring a child in a wheelchair reaching for his handshake. As she quickly discovered, it was based on a deceptively edited video, and three days later she apologized.

"Re: my tweets about the small boy in a wheelchair whose proferred hand the president appeared to ignore in press footage," she tweeted, "multiple sources have informed me that that was not a full or accurate representation of their interaction."

"I very clearly projected my own sensitivities around the issue of disabled people being overlooked or ignored onto the images I saw and if that caused any distress to that boy or his family, I apologise unreservedly."

"These tweets will remain, but I will delete the previous ones on the subject," she concluded.

Some have noted that the apology was not directed at the subject of the deceptive video: President Trump.

The narrative surrounded a deceptively edited video of a visit at the White House. Although Trump warmly greeted a child in a wheelchair, when he walked back he seemed to shake the hands of those around him and not his. Someone edited out the greeting and only posted the latter portion of the video.

It went viral among those looking for an excuse to bash Trump.

Rowling's rant against the president went viral as well.

“Trump imitated a disabled reporter. Now he pretends not to see a child in a wheelchair, as though frightened he might catch his condition,” she began.

“This monster of narcissism values only himself and his pale reflections,” she continued. “The disabled, minorities, transgender people, the poor, women (unless related to him by ties of blood, and therefore his creations) are treated with contempt, because they do not resemble Trump.”

“How stunning, and how horrible, that Trump cannot bring himself to shake the hand of a small boy who only wanted to touch the President,” she concluded.

Here's the longer video showing how the president didn't ignore the child at all.

So @jk_rowling is on a tirade about how Trump ignored a kid in a wheelchair, but she conveniently left out the clip from the beginning: pic.twitter.com/v3tBXI8WY9

— エリック (@scratch_point) July 28, 2017

Rowling has been a long-time critic of President Trump, and has used her Twitter account, which has more than 11.4 million followers, to assail the Republican constantly. She has also derided liberal feminist males who disappointed her with their lack of honesty.