Actor Taylor Lautner has received an
apology from the Australian edition of men's fashion glossy GQ
over a gay question.
During a cover interview, Lautner was
asked whether director Gus Van Sant and writer Dustin Lance Black,
the team behind the Oscar-winning film Milk, hit on him during
a recent dinner meeting.
The 19-year-old star of The Twilight
Saga film series answered that the men would not hit on him
because they know he's straight: “No, definitely not. I think they
know I'm straight. But they're great guys. They're a lot of fun.
It's not a coincidence that there was a writer, a director and an
actor at dinner.”
Gay glossy The Advocate
suggested the question might be homophobic. “Would GQ have
asked Lautner the same question if he'd dined with two older straight
women,” the online edition of the magazine asked.
Black blasted the magazine for asking the
question.
“I'm curious, will you be asking all
of the handsome actors I've ever had the privilege of working with or
meeting if I made passes at them as well,” Black wrote. “Or, Mr.
GQ writer, were you projecting your own unprofessional desires onto
me and Gus? Perhaps? Or worse still, are you a homophobe?”
“I'm shocked that GQ would
allow their writers to lean on the scurrilous, outdated stereotype
that gay men are by nature sexual predators,” he added.
At the magazine's Facebook page, Editor
Nick Smith apologized.
“We've seen some of the comments
floating around regarding our recent interview with Taylor Lautner
and [apologize] if anyone was offended by anything in the article,”
Smith wrote. “It certainly wasn't our intention to paint anyone in
the story as a sexual predator. The point we were actually trying to
push was that Taylor is irresistible to virtually everyone –
regardless of sexuality or gender.”