'Merv Griffin died a closeted homosexual' [UPDATE]

In a nutshell, that's his epitaph—from the gay community, at least.

You would expect editorials about Griffin from the Washington Blade and other gay publications. But yesterday, the not-so-totally-gay Hollywood Reporter published a stunning editorial from Ray Raymond: 'Merv Griffin died a closeted homosexual.'

"Merv Griffin was gay," it begins.

Reuters picked it up, and more media have begun to run it. (Hat tip to PageOneQ, the compendium of gay online news, for the ongoing Griffin alerts.)

[The article was deleted hours after this diary on August 17, 2007 from the Hollywood Reporter website, according to HuffPo and other sources. Later, the article was restored under a new title: 'Griffin never revealed man behind the curtain.' See UPDATES below.]