'True Blood' Star Luke Grimes Left The HBO Series Because He Was Unwilling To Play Gay Character

Many of you True Blood fans might have noticed the recasting of a fang-toothed vampire, when the seventh season premiered last Sunday.

Lukas Grimes, who played vampire James, left creators scrambing to fill his role when he sudden departured the series earlier this year. Grimes cites the reason for his exit was because of "the creative direction of the character." As the seventh season storyline develops we can see what the actor really meant was that he didn't want to play a gay character.

A source confirmed our suspicions saying that Luke was uncomfortable playing James, who we are told will continue to have a budding relationship with Lafayette in the coming episodes. When Grimes read the scripts and saw that the storyline was headed to a James-Lafayette hookup, he hit the ground running.

Sources also claim that Grimes wanted some changes to the script saying that he would only stay on if Lafayette was the one attracted to him, not if the feeling was mutual. The writers, who clearly have an end game in mind for all their characters were unwavering when it came to changing the script.

It surprises us that Grimes would want to be on a show that has such a huge LGBT following, not to mention that a lot of the storylines on the series do have gay undertones.

His publicist is claiming that what his exit really came down to was scheduling issues. Isn't that always the excuse? We aren't buying that for a second. In an email to Buzzfeed his publicist claims, "Luke always had an out clause as a means of pursuing other opportunities which arose in the form of features. It had nothing to do with storylines."

When the site reached out to HBO they stuck by their original reason for why the actor left the series.

The new season features actor Nathan Parsons (Bunheads) in the role of James, and we have to say we are excited to see someone finish out the characters storyline in the way that the writers intended.