Contact Music has an article stating that one of J.K.Rowling's cousins by the name of Ben, claims the Harry Potter character was based on him.
Quote:
BEN is furious the HARRY POTTER author refuses to admit he was the inspiration for the schoolboy wizard or give him any of the $774 million (GBP430 million) she made from the books and films.
BEN, 37, was "inseparable" from the multi-millionaires writer while he was growing up, and insists he's the basis for her infamous character, debunking Rowling's claim she came up with the idea while stuck on a delayed train from Manchester to London.
He says, "When I read the first Harry Potter book, my jaw dropped. It was uncanny, far more than a coincidence. I know Jo based Harry on me. I can see so much of the young me in his character.
"We used to spend the weekends swapping stories of boarding school life. She was always fascinated about what I had been up to at school and used to love me telling her about the scrapes and escapades I had been involved in.
"Jo and I were inseparable and even today people stop me and tell me I look just like Harry Potter."
Contact Music are not by any means the most reliable source and one cant help but feel that this sounds like another fabrication by a tabloid designed purely to create hype. Many other sites have noted and I agree, that this might well appear in Jo Rowling's
rubbish bin soon, a feature she uses to show her fans which articles about her are truth and which are lies.
Source:
Contact Music &
Mugglenet.
Jo Rowling's cousin claims Potter character was based on him 
