EDITOR'S UPDATE: For a complete story on today's news about David Hyde Pierce visit our mainpage.

Multitalented multidisciplinarian David Hyde Pierce (best known for playing Niles on Frasier) has found success on Broadway, on television, and on the big screen -- and although his sexuality has always been an open secret within the artistic community (much like Neil Patrick Harris), he has been reticent to speak to the topic publicly -- as is his right. In fact, our own Brent Hartinger did the first interview with Pierce after Frasier debuted and was told, "Basically, I don't talk about my personal life."

That's why it's so surprising to see reference made to his "partner" made in a recent AP story on Pierce that hit CNN.com recently, among other places. The story notes:

"He worked at Playwrights Horizons, the Public Theater, Shakespeare in the Park and a lot of regional theaters such as the Guthrie in Minneapolis, Chicago's Goodman and Long Wharf in New Haven, Conn. Pierce got to Los Angeles in the early 1990s when his partner, actor-writer-producer Brian Hargrove, wanted to write for television."

The mention is buried a dozen paragraphs in, so it's very easy to miss -- to be sure that the reference is accurate and was intended, AfterElton.com contacted Pierce's representation, who confirmed that Hargrove is indeed Pierce's life partner.

It's interesting that this quiet yet enormous step was taken shortly after Pierce was essentially outed by Michael Musto in his "Glass Closet" article that accompanied Out magazine's controversial "Gay Power List" piece. Is this another situation where a gay celeb was pushed out before he was ready (see also: Lance Bass, T.R. Knight, Neil Patrick Harris)?

Whatever the cause, we want to applaud Pierce for feeling comfortable enough to have his sexuality discussed in stories about him (and on a more personal note, as a fan, I'm thrilled to have him on the team!). He's currently appearing on Broadway in his Tony-nominated role in Curtains, and I'm sure he'd love to be mobbed by his gay fans at the stage door! We're also hoping to do an interview with Pierce in the very near future.

(Hattip to Wayman!)

Last week Turbine, Inc. of Westwood, MA released a new online role-playing game based on J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings called "The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar". Salon.com just posted a very interesting article over the controversy that erupted at the company over the issue of whether the game would allow same-sex marriage (the article also examines gay gaming issues in general). Ultimately, Turbine decided to completely remove the game's marriage feature rather than allow same-sex marriage. While it seems a silly decision, I prefer that over discriminating against gay folks who want to swap those Middle Earth Rings with each other.

We've written about gay-gaming issues before including the recent controversy over Bully's same-sex kiss. The issue here doesn't seem to be out right homophobia on the part of the game-designers. The article points out that one of the designers, Nik Davidson, is pro-gay in real life, but voted against including same-sex marriage in The Lord of the Rings. His (and others) reasoning? That since same-sex marriage wasn't in Tolkien's original creation, it couldn't be here as their goal was to be as authentic to his vision as possible. (Does this mean online role playing games were part of his vision?) As an example of sticking to Tolkien's game plan, the article cites how during beta testing they discovered a gray squirrel, a creature which Tolkien apparently abhorred. The color was promptly changed.

As all Brothers & Sisters fans well know, there was no episode last Sunday night so there are no recaps this week. To tide you over I've grabbed a mix of photos from past and upcoming episodes for my your amusement. The show is back next Sunday with all new eps through May 20th. After that I'll have to come up with some other way to entertain myself you.

Dora, er, Nora in a cliche character storyline on her way to writing a bestseller!

It's way too late for me to messing around on line, but when I came across news that Lost appears to finally be adding a gay character, I had to post it. No word if the character is a boy or a girl, but according to the latest Lost podcast, it happens on next week's episode. The episode is called "Expose" which is rather suggestive. Personally, I'm pulling for Jack (Matthew Fox) to be our island 'mo, but I'd wager it's probably a minor character and one of the Others. (BTW, earlier this season one of the Others did indicate he might be gay, but nothing more ever came of it. If it is that character, I'll be highly annoyed as that will be the lamest reveal in history.)

Or maybe it's Jack and Sawyer (Josh Holloway).