JK ROWLING - ROWLING: "DUMBLEDORE WAS GAY"

JK Rowling has revealed a secret that could shock Harry Potter fans to the core.

According to the hugely successful author, Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was gay.

Speaking at New York's Carnegie Hall, on her first US book tour since 2000, the multi-millionairess was asked if Dumbledore had found "true love".

"Dumbledore is gay", she answered, adding: "Falling in love can blind you to an extent."

Fans of the final book in the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will recall that as a young man, Dumbledore is initially charmed by the skill of fellow wizard Gellert Grindelwald, who later becomes his arch-nemesis.

With Dumbledore "horribly, terribly let down" by the revelation of Grindelwald's obsession with the Dark Arts, he destroys Grindelwald in a devastating duel.

Rowling explained that this love for Grindelwald was his "great tragedy".

The revelation was greeted with raucous applause from the New York audience, with Rowling exclaiming: "If I had known this would have made you so happy, I would have told you years ago!"

She revealed that while working on the sixth Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, she spotted a script reference to a girl in Dumbledore's past and ensured director David Yates knew the truth about the character.

Christian groups - already opposed to Rowling's books due to their alleged promotion of witchcraft - could be angered by her latest revelation, she acknowledged.