When a young fan asked J.K. Rowling if Dumbledore found true love after the series concluded, she revealed that Dumbledore is gay. She said that Dumbledore fell in love with the charming wizard Gellert Grindelwald long ago but when Grindelwald pursued the dark arts, Dumbledore was "terribly let down" and had to destroy him. Rowling also said she had to correct the script writer of the movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. There was a scene where Dumbledore was reminiscing about past loves and she removed it, scrawling "Dumbledore is gay" over the text.
The audience was at first shocked and quiet. Then they burst into applause. Rowling said that if she had known how well people would take the news, she would have outed him earlier.
I have read none of the Harry Potter novels, but I know very well who Dumbledore is.
Why?
Our Blogsmith designer Mike Propst has always looked like an older, drunker Harry Potter -- and I mean that in a good way. So when Gavin and Alex built design editing tools in Blogsmith for Mike to use, they named them "Dumbledore" and had this fantastic welcome screen:

That tool has been retired for a while now, but the new Blogsmith design editing tool retains a nod to the great wizard in its top right corner:

I guess I was ahead of the curve on this one. I've known Dumbledore was gay since Ian McKellen hosted Saturday Night Live with Kylie Minogue as the musical guest.






Comments (2)
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Niki Alvey 305 days ago
I saw your twitter about this and thought to myself. Duh? Where have you been Brian? Didn't you go see "Gods and Monsters" with me? Yes Ian McKellen is gay.
Then I looked at your post and for once you were being literal and not making a joke :). Ha.
I've read all the books and it makes sense. Good for J. K. Rowling.
Elayne Riggs 304 days ago
It was fun finding an appropriate illustration to go along with that story (most of which Glenn wrote) on ComicMix. :)