Dumbledore brave, brilliant; why not gay: Rowling

By Martin Roberts

TORONTO (Reuters) - J.K. Rowling, whose Harry Potter series made her the first billionaire author, said on Tuesday she was surprised at the fuss surrounding her announcement the boy wizard's head teacher, Albus Dumbledore, was gay.

"It has certainly never been news to me that a brave and brilliant man could love other men," Rowling told a news conference in Toronto, where she is attending an authors' festival.

Rowling, a mother-of-three, made the surprise revelation in New York on Friday, during her first U.S. tour in seven years.

She said Dumbledore was once infatuated with the winsome wizard Gellert Grindelwald, but the two became rivals when Grindelwald turned out to be more interested in the dark than the good arts. Dumbledore went on to destroy Grindelwald.

Reaction has been mainly supportive on fans' Web sites, such as The Leaky Cauldron (www.leakynews.com), where news of Dumbledore's outing has drawn more than 3,000 comments.

Rowling declined to say whether her "outing" of Dumbledore might alienate those who disapprove of homosexuality.

"He is my character. He is what he is and I have the right to say what I say about him," she said.

Rowling said she made no revelations about Dumbledore's sexuality before Friday, because she had never before been asked directly.