Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore is easily one of the most important and interesting characters in the whole wide Wizarding World. Across the seven Harry Potter books, Dumbledore goes from wise and twinkly-eyed infallible grandfather figure to a complicated and flawed human being.
Over time, however, a whole new dimension has been added to the character through the question of his sexuality. Although J.K. Rowling herself is now a controversial figure to the LGBTQ community — which is a bit like saying Lord Voldemort is a controversial figure in the wizard community — Dumbledore is widely embraced by queer fans, even if Rowling’s depiction and handling of his development and storyline have been strongly criticized.
But is Dumbledore actually gay in the Harry Potter stories? Is his sexuality canon? Let’s shine an un-deluminated light on this situation.
Is Albus Dumbledore gay in Harry Potter canon?
If you’re aware of the fact that Dumbledore is gay and jump into the book series eager to see this explored, well, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. The first time that Albus’ sexuality was confirmed actually occurred after the seventh book, The Deathly Hallows, released. During a Q&A at Carnegie Hall in October 2007, The Deathly Hallows, Rowling announced that she had “always thought of Dumbledore as gay.”
At the time this was a massive, massive deal for Potter fans as it was the first instance of Rowling announcing something major about the canon that didn’t feature in the books (sadly, it would definitely not be the last). Ever since, fans interpreted Albus’ teenage “friendship” with Gellert Grindelwald in a different light, assuming that the pair actually had a romance before the latter became a dark wizard. As it was, Rowling herself never actually confirmed this was the case.
That is until the Fantastic Beasts movies came along — you know, the same films that tried to convince us Nagini was originally a cursed human woman and that Johnny Depp was an upgrade on Colin Farrell. During the promotion for second installment The Crimes of Grindelwald in 2019, Rowling confirmed Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s romance for the first time. In fact, she did more than that, as the author announced they had once had an “intense sexual relationship”.
Given that this “intense sexual” past was barely even alluded to in Crimes, many fans were furious that Rowling would tease a LGBTQ storyline in this way without actually following through with that representation, either on the page or on screen. It wasn’t until the fittingly titled 2022’s Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore that Albus’ sexuality was made explicitly clear in the canon. The threequel opens with Albus and Grindelwald discussing their past, at which point Dumbledore confirms that they were once in love.
And that’s it, as we didn’t get any steamy flashbacks to their hedonistic younger days or even a same-sex kiss. Just a few lines of dialogue that could be — and were — easily edited out for less tolerant international markets. Still, if you want to count it as a win, you can. 25 years on from his creation in 1997’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone, Dumbledore being gay was finally made Wizarding World canon.