J.K. Rowling has sparked controversy after claiming her fortune makes the pain of losing fans go away “pretty quickly”.

The Harry Potter author was asked “how she sleeps at night” after being accused of making anti-trans remarks on social media.

She quickly shot back on Twitter last night, claiming her royalty cheques from the much-loved wizard franchise have softened the blow of losing a “whole audience”.

Glasgow Times: SourcedSourced (Image: Sourced)

It comes after Rowling sported a t-shirt accusing Nicola Sturgeon of being a “destroyer of women’s rights” in protest of the Scottish Government’s gender recognition proposals.

The move would remove the need for a medical diagnosis replaced by self-ID, while the age is set to drop from 18 to 16.

But some campaigners, including Rowling, fear the plans are a threat to women’s rights and single-sex spaces.

In the past she has also taken issue with online articles which said “people who menstruate” and tweeted: “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”

Critics accused her of being transphobic, an allegation Rowling strongly denies.

Now she has come under fire again as one person asked the writer on Twitter: “How do you sleep at night knowing you’ve lost a whole audience from buying your books?”

She replied: “I read my most recent royalty cheques and find the pain goes away pretty quickly.”

The tweet quickly triggered thousands of replies branding the author as a “loser” while others hailed her “trolling”.

One person tweeted: “Wild that someone with so much money, and so much opportunity to live a life that most of us can only dream of, decides to spend all their time being a scumbag on Twitter. What a loser.”

A second person tweeted: “I'm pretty sure that defending the harm you do by boasting how much you earn from it is a new low.”

Others replied on twitter, saying: “It genuinely hurts how uncaring you’ve become that your words and actions are causing so much pain to a group of people who once idolized you.

“But I guess money is the only thing that really matters to you know; and that is just sad.”

However, some loyal fans were quick to defend the author and vowed to continue to support her.

One person tweeted: “I have had people telling me not to buy her books, if I do I am s***.

“So I went to kindle and bought all The Strike and HP books - despite having them already on audible an hardback.

“I sent them a screenshot of the money I had spent on JKR. I'm that kind of petty.”

A second fan showed off their new Harry Potter merchandise and tweeted: “I got my Ravenclaw swag in the post today.”

Another fan tweeted: “Nobody puts the trolls and haters down like J.K!

“And thank you for your continued support of all true females in this screwed up woke world.”

Others tweeted: “Savage reply.”

One fan said: “A+ trolling.”