Heroes producer calls out Dekker's Management

I know it may seem like this is water under the bridge -- but the truth is, we never got a concrete public statement from the folks behind Heroes regarding exactly what happened to the intended-to-be-gay character of Zach (a story which AfterElton.com broke to the world back in December).

It looks like we finally have something on the record: at the recent Wizard World convention in Los Angeles, the show's fans put it to the panel of the show's masterminds exactly what happened to the sexuality of Claire's friend Zach, played by Thomas Dekker. Producer Bryan Fuller replied with confirmation of our suspicions, according to SpoilerTV's coverage of the panel:

The panel seemed at first reluctant to address the controversy surrounding the sexuality of Claire’s friend Zach, portrayed by actor Thomas Dekker. But Fuller did eventually say, that Dekker’s management “didn’t want him to be playing a gay character” for career reasons. The panel then did acknowledge that they’d originally conceived of the Zach character as gay, and that the ambiguity is a result of an “unfortunate miscommunication.”

First off, tip of the hat to the fans at the convention for not letting the producers off the hook on this one (I hope it was an AfterElton.com reader who lobbed the question!). And it's good to have official word on exactly what happened (assuming that SpoilerTV.com is reporting correctly), so that we can put this thing to rest and simply resolve to boycott Dekker's career rather than skip any more episodes of Heroes. Because let's face it -- that's a hard habit to break.