NBC denies
Heroes character is gay

An article on AfterElton.com by Brian Juergens prompted an NBC publicist to notify readers that Zach, Thomas Dekker's character on the NBC show Heroes, is not gay. The article theorizes that either Dekker's management or NBC itself pulled the plug on any story lines that would involve addressing Zach's sexual orientation.

The network has come under fire for portraying the character as a gay teen in a small town, specifically on his MySpace Web page where he declares his sexual orientation as "not sure."

Zach is the sidekick to Texas high school cheerleader Claire Bennet, played by Hayden Panettiere. He seems relatively unphased by his peers' gay-baiting but never admits to being gay or straight.

The show's creator, Tom Kring, responded in an e-mail to AfterElton.com about the claims, saying he regrets that the character seemed to be gay because he is not.

"We apologize for misleading the audience and wish that we could have handled things better on our end," Kring wrote. "But making a TV show is often a very imprecise business. As you stated, Heroes is a big sprawling drama, and there is no reason to believe that a gay character will not be represented on our show in the future. It is my hope that if we do, we do it with honesty and dignity. That will certainly be our attempt." (The Advocate)