Molly Ringwald Says 'Pretty In Pink' Friend Duckie Was Gay, But Jon Cryer Disputes Allegation

Molly Ringwald Outs 'Pretty In Pink' Best Friend Duckie As Gay

Molly Ringwald, the iconic 1980s girl-next-door, is coming clean about the sexuality of one of her "Pretty In Pink" pals -- but the actor who played him is dismissing the allegations.

The 44-year-old Ringwald, who currently stars on the ABC Family series "The Secret Life of the American Teenager," tells Out magazine that Duckie, the flamboyant best friend to her character Andie in 1986's "Pretty In Pink," was secretly gay. Though an alternate ending of the classic "Brat Pack" comedy in which Andie ended up with Duckie (played by Jon Cryer) rather than Blane (Andrew McCarthy) was filmed, test audiences responded to it negatively.

"Duckie doesn’t know he’s gay," Ringwald tells the publication. "I think he loves Andie in the way that [my gay best friend] always loved me. That ending fell so flat -- it bombed at all the screenings. I didn’t realize it then -- I just knew that my character shouldn’t end up with him, because we didn’t have that sort of chemistry. If John was here now, and I could talk to him, I think that he would completely acknowledge that.”

Ringwald also believes that "Pretty In Pink" screenwriter John Hughes, who died in 2009, "wrote a lot of gay characters" into his other movies like "Some Kind of Wonderful" and "The Breakfast Club." Still, she specifies, "It was something that we never talked about" before continuing that said characters "easily could have been gay" rather than being out and proud in the context of the films.

Cryer, who currently stars opposite Ashton Kutcher on "Two and a Half Men," laughed off Ringwald's assessment. "Yes, she said that the guy whom Duckie was based on was gay. It's a different thing. Let's be clear here," the actor tells Zap2it. "No, she actually said that if one projected beyond the movie, that Duckie would be out by now. And I respectfully disagree."

He went on to note, "I want to stand up for all the slightly effeminate dorks that are actually heterosexual. Just cause the gaydar is going off, doesn't mean your instruments aren't faulty. I've had to live with that, and that's okay."

Ringwald's "Secret Life" character, Anne Juergens, is also reportedly set to have a lesbian fling on the series.

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