UNITED KINGDOM / FILE: Harry Potter author says Hogwarts headmaster is gay

British author J.K. Rowling has 'outed' one of the main characters of her best-selling Harry Potter series, telling fans in New York that the wizard Albus Dumbledore, head of Hogwarts school, is gay. Speaking at Carnegie Hall on Friday night (October 19) in her first U.S. tour in seven years, Rowling confirmed what some fans had always suspected -- that she "always thought Dumbledore was gay", reported entertainment Web site E! Online. Rowling said Dumbledore fell in love with the charming wizard Gellert Grindelwald but when Grindelwald turned out to be more interested in the dark arts than good, Dumbledore was "terribly let down" and went on to destroy his rival. That love, she said, was Dumbledore's "great tragedy". The audience reportedly fell silent after the admission -- then erupted into applause. Rowling, 42, said if she had known that would be the response, she would have revealed her thoughts on Dumbledore earlier. Rowling said she had read through a script for the movie adaptation of the sixth book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and corrected a passage in which Dumbledore was reminiscing about past loves by crossing it out and scrawling "Dumbledore is gay" over it. Dumbledore has been portrayed by actors Richard Harris and more recently Michael Gambon in the popular Harry Potter films. Fans like Martin Gersely in London think that a gay character could be a good influence on young readers. "We live in a world of diversity. I mean, there is gay people, straight people, there is transgenders, there is everything. So I think it's important for children to get used to this diversity and grow up with...to basically teach them tolerance and acceptance," he said. Mike Hopkins said it will be interesting to see how people will react to a well-loved character like Dumbledore being 'outed'. "He is somebody that everybody respects, but whether that has any impact on people's perception if he's gay, I don't know. It will be interesting to see. It doesn't affect me at all," he said. Mother of two Melanie Burke doesn't think the wizard's sexuality changes anything. "If a character is gay or not I don't think it makes any change...it doesn't affect the story," she said. Rowling, a mother of three, is now estimated to be worth $1.12 billion US dollars, making her the first dollar-billionaire author. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" -- the seventh and final book in the boy wizard series -- became the fastest-selling book in history when it was released in July. More than 11 million copies were sold in the first 24 hours in the United States and Britain.

ITN Source | October 20, 2007

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