J.K. Rowling has long been open about the fact that Albus Dumbledore, the secretly-not-so-grandfatherly head wizard of her Harry Potter books (and more dashing middle-aged hunk in the Fantastic Beasts prequels), was a mostly on-the-DL homosexual. The author will likely be leaving the detailed descriptions of his boudoir antics to the fan-fic-ers, but she sure enjoys periodically tossing them some, if you will, meat. To wit: She recently said Dumbledore used to do it with bad guy Gellert Grindelwald.
Radio Times picked up on the tidbit, which can be found on the Blu-ray disc for the kind of confusing Fantastic Beasts sequel The Crimes of Grindelwald. “Their relationship was incredibly intense. It was passionate, and it was a love relationship,” Rowling can be heard saying during the “Distinctly Dumbledore” featurette. “But as happens in any relationship, gay or straight or whatever label we want to put on it, one never knows really what the other person is feeling. You can’t know, you can believe you know.”
“So I’m less interested in the sexual side — though I believe there is a sexual dimension to this relationship — than I am in the sense of the emotions they felt for each other, which ultimately is the most fascinating thing about all human relationship,” Rowling added.
Just so you get a clearer picture in your head, the current on-screen incarnation of Dumbledore is played by Jude Law, while Grindelwald is essayed by one Johnny Depp. Other actors who’ve played Dumbledore include the late Richard Harris and, after his death in 2002, Michael Gambon.
The news will likely incense conservatives, who will fume that children don’t need to learn about homosexuality when young, thereby betraying their prejudice by implying that they think heterosexual relationships are fine and normal for them to think about. Then again, Harry Potter is for everyone, especially the many who are doubtless currently banging out fan-fic in which two of the stars of Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus acrobatically engage in hot wizard action.
(Via Radio Times and Complex)
