Fox’s new president Kevin Reilly

Fox Entertainment’s new president Kevin Reilly was put in the hot seat Monday during the Television Critics’ Association Press Tour in Los Angeles. Reilly was introducing Fox’s fall line-up on the same day that GLAAD was releasing its annual Network Responsibility Index report. The report excoriated Fox for its underepresentation of the GLBT community. In answer to questions about Fox’s failing grade, Reilly said “I can say that we’ve got several shows now moving forward with gay characters in them. Sometimes you’ve actually got great representation, and then for creative reasons or commercial reasons, something gets canceled and your numbers go down. That’s something we’re really committed to. In fact, we’re in production on a pilot right now, Virtuality, that Ron Moore and Michael Taylor created. Pete Berg is directing it. And it’s got a gay relationship that is as dimensional and as honest as anything I’ve ever seen portrayed on television. So if we move forward on that, I think that would end being something to really note.”

Virtuality, a sci-fi drama set on a spaceship, looks to be one of the breakouts of Fox’s upcoming season. According to the script breakdown, the couple in question are life partners Manny Rodriguez (Jose Pablo Cantillo), a mathematician, and Valentin “Val” Orlov (yet to be cast), a Russian geologist, who always seem to be bickering; Has a Fox show even featured a gay relationship since those two episodes of the OC where Marissa thought she was bisexual?

Ironically, Fox’s cable channel, F/X, came out on top of the GLAAD report. Of 62.5 total hours of original primetime programming, the network offered 28 hours (45%) with LGBT-inclusive content. Most of those shows were shepherded to the air by F/X’s former president, a guy named…Kevin Reilly. Hopefully, he’ll be able to bring his cable sensibilities to his new position at the network.

Link to GLAAD report: http://www.glaad.org/media/nri/

British soap fans, rejoice! Last week, Channel 4 announced that Craig Dean (played by Guy Burnet) would be returning to Hollyoaks together with his long-lost love John-Paul McQueen (James Sutton).

For those of you who missed it last season, John-Paul and Craig enjoyed a torrid (and secret) love affair until Craig, unable to go public with their relationship and still struggling to accept the fact he’s gay, left for college in Ireland. Now John-Paul has gone and hooked up with the hot new village priest, Father Kieron Hobbs (Jake Hendriks). What will happen when the super-conflicted Craig returns to discover JP and Father Kieron’s most unholy union?

Burnet returns to filming next month and will start airing in early September. Until then, non-UK fans can get caught up with the drama on YouTube.

Click the photo below to see the complete gallery

Our NY gay lovers, Katie and Fred, grabbed these photos of Jake Silbermann, who stars as the totally hot Noah in As the World Turns, while he tossed a ball into the crowd at a NY baseball game. The game was CBS vs ABC’s ‘10th Annual Tammy Rubin Rice Celebrity Softball Game’ to support Shorefront Friends for Hospice. The game was held at Midwood High School, in Brooklyn, NY.

According to Jake, Van Hansis, (aka Luke) couldn’t make it… it was his mother’s birthday. What a good gay son!!

Cyndi Lauper

Cyndi Lauper, 80’s icon and a major supporter of queer rights, is set to appear July 3 on CBS’ As the World Turns, according to Entertainment Weekly. Lauper takes the stage at Yo’s for a benefit concert where she stands beneath a sign reading ”Oakdale U. Pride loves Cyndi Lauper” . The singer performs two songs: her new single Into the Nightlife from her new album Bring Ya to the Brink, and her classic diversity anthem, True Colors to support her second True Colors Tour that begins May 31st. 

Lauper dances with the hot gay couple Nuke (Luke/Van Hansis, and Noah/Jake Silbermann). She dedicates the True Colors song to Luke, whom she gets to know when he interviews her for the college paper.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Lauper’s visit to Oakdale makes sense for a couple of reasons. For one, it supports an issue that’s long been important to her — equality. Lauper was raised to believe that you ‘’stick up for your own,” she says, and her older sister, Ellen, is lesbian. Lauper has also followed the Luke-Noah storyline enough to have an opinion on whether the couple — which shared the first gay kiss in daytime last August but has yet to spend the night together — is moving too slowly.

“I think they’re young, these guys, and they’re sweet,” she tells EW.com. “They’re taking their time and struggling with the heart issues, which is even more endearing than just being like the straight couples, half-naked and having sex all over the place. The best way to people is through the heart, and that’s why I think it’s kind of interesting the way they’ve done it. It’s about love.”

photo source

Perry Moore’s novel Hero, about the world’s first gay superhero, is destined for television.

“It looks like we’re going to do a TV series,” Moore told NY Magazine at a party for the artist Hunt Slonem on Wednesday. “There were two networks that we pitched, and we got two offers. We’ll announce any day, hopefully, who we’re going to do it with,” Moore continued. He described the live-action series as labyrinthine and similar to Lost. “It’s not campy either — it’s not The Gayest American Hero. He just happens to be gay. It’s just one of the many things he wrestles with.”

Moore, a longtime Walden Media executive, was one of the passel of producers on the Narnia movies, but sounds dramatically more excited about the producer who’s helping shepherd Hero along: Stan Lee. “The ultimate fanboy moment,” Moore calls the first phone call from “legend” Lee. “Just to have a straight older man who’s the comic-book legend of all time … just to have him think that the next big movie is my humble little creation about the world’s first gay superhero — it was just wonderful. Wonderful! It was such a thrill. I’m talking way too much,” he said. “Fingers crossed!”

On Thursday’s final episode of Grey’s Anatomy, we got to see everyone kiss. And kiss a lot. It was a finale of non-stop lip-locking. It was a Kiss-Fest. It was a voyeurist’s dream come true. And of course, we got to see Callie and Erica kiss, and kiss again. Watch this finale clip to see the last 8 minutes of the 2-hour season finale where everyone kissed. 

Entertainment Weekly reported on Erica/Callie’s budding relationship:

For Grey’s Anatomy fans who began the season wondering whether Dr. Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith) was gay, the May 22 season finale finally offered an answer — she might just be, now that Callie (Sara Ramirez) made her move. The two-hour episode — which culminated with Callie planting a big ol’ buss on Erica outside of Seattle Grace — had us asking: For the love of The L Word, could Eri-Cal eclipse Meredith and Derek as Grey’s It Couple? Creator Shonda Rhimes hints that we may not have seen the last of this budding romance. “Callie and Erica have an undeniable chemistry,” says Rhimes. “And watching the story unfold is something the writers are looking forward to. I wanted to illuminate their relationship in the same way we do all relationships on the show — it will be funny, sweet, honest, and a little bit dirty.”

As for Smith, she doesn’t think Dr. Hahn was coming out of the closet in the last few weeks leading up to the finale. In fact, she and Rhimes specifically talked about Hahn not being gay when Smith first joined the show last fall. “Earlier this season, we felt it was too obvious that a strong, powerful woman would be a lesbian,” says Smith. “In fact, Dr. Hahn decided she wasn’t going to have a relationship at work, though clearly she came to the wrong hospital.”

Like the fans, Smith said she and Ramirez were kept guessing about their relationship until days before taping of the final episode. Even costars like Patrick Dempsey were caught off guard by the surprise kiss; Smith remembers him gasping at the table read and saying, “Are you two getting together?”

“Sara Ramirez is not a bad choice. She’s pretty hot!” says Smith. “Why not? I’m game.”

Here’s Ellen’s interview with John McCain on same sex marriage:

(source)

25 year old David Cook, with mic in hand, was crowned the winner of the seventh season of American Idol. 

As David Archuleta and David Cook competed for the title of “American Idol,” the second-to-last installment of the Fox show’s seventh season attracted 26.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen’s estimates. That tally was up slightly from the same night a year ago (25.3 million). 

(photo source)

Republican John McCain is set to appear on Thursday’s “The Ellen DeGeneres show,” according to the Associated Press. In the interview, McCain says same-sex couples should be allowed to enter into legal agreements for insurance and other purposes, but he opposes gay marriage and believes in “the unique status of marriage between and man and a woman.” 

“And I know that we have a respectful disagreement on that issue,” the likely Republican presidential nominee said in the interview.

McCain, who also opposes an amendment to the Constitution to ban same-sex unions, said people should be encouraged to enter into legal agreements, particularly for insurance and other areas where decisions need to be made.

DeGeneres needled McCain on the issue, arguing that she and the senator from Arizona aren’t different.

Last week, after the California Supreme Court cleared the way for gay marriage in that state, DeGeneres announced on her program her engagement to longtime girlfriend Portia de Rossi.

“We are all the same people, all of us. You’re no different than I am. Our love is the same,” she said. “When someone says, ‘You can have a contract, and you’ll still have insurance, and you’ll get all that,’ it sounds to me like saying, ‘Well, you can sit there, you just can’t sit there.’

“It feels like we are not, you know, we aren’t owed the same things and the same wording,” DeGeneres said.

McCain said he’s heard her “articulate that position in a very eloquent fashion. We just have a disagreement. And I, along with many, many others, wish you every happiness.”

DeGeneres steered the conversation back toward the humor she’s known for.

“So, you’ll walk me down the aisle? Is that what you’re saying?” she asked.

“Touche,” McCain said.

(photo source)

Tonight’s “American Idol” finale just got a little bit more star-tacular with news that George Michael is planning to perform.

A source told E! Online, the pop star and more recently, “Eli Stone” star, will take to the “Idol” stage tonight.

Michael will join the list of performers that already includes the “Idol” cast and Carrie Underwood, who confirmed to Access Hollywood on Sunday that she would be at the show’s finale.

Underwood, fresh off a win at the Academy of Country Music Awards, will perform her new song, “Last Name.”