The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman has stepped in to clear up whether Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) is gay or straight.
Speaking to Talking Dead (via Digital Spy), Kirkman said that “Daryl Dixon is actually straight.”
He went on to say that “Coming back in our next half of the season, we are going to be introducing a very prominent gay character from the comics.”
The show added its first LGBT character last season when former police academy student Tara Chambler (Alanna Masterson) made her initial appearance in ‘Live Bait’.
There’s been plenty of speculation about Daryl’s sexuality, often centred on the fact the character hasn’t shown any romantic interest in any of his fellow survivors. The speculation quite reasonably escalated when Reedus revealed in an interview with GQ that Frank Darabont, who, let’s not forget, actually co-created the character, suggested that he play the character as gay.
“I remember Frank Darabont, after the first season we were at a party in L.A., He said, ‘I’ve got an idea for Daryl. He’s gay. Would you be interested in that?’ I was like, ‘Let me hear you out.’ He said, ‘Well, he’s prison gay—like, you’ll catch him looking at a member of the same sex, but if you mention it to him, he’ll just stab you and be like what the fuck?—he will never admit it.’ I was like, ‘That’ll blow minds—let’s do that.’ And he said, ‘I knew I hired you for a reason.'”
Since then, the makers have been coy on the issue but clearly the time came to stomp any ambiguity. It does seem as though this would have been an impressively progressive step for an incredibly popular mainstream show to take and that it had the potential to be a natural, interesting development for the character.
The Walking Dead currently airs on Fox on Monday nights at 9pm. You can buy The Walking Dead Season 1-4 on Blu-ray for £48 at Amazon.co.uk. Read more about the show in the SciFiNow Annual, on sale now.
