Lestat de Lioncourt is one of the central figures of The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. First introduced in Interview with the Vampire (1976), Lestat begins as the seductive and ruthless maker of Louis before evolving into the saga’s most charismatic antihero. Across more than a dozen novels and multiple adaptations, he is flamboyant, philosophical, manipulative, romantic, violent, and deeply emotional. Central to that complexity is his bisexuality — present in the books, confirmed by the author, coded in early adaptations, and made explicit in the recent AMC TV series.
In the novels, Lestat’s bisexuality is canon, even when expressed through gothic sensuality rather than modern identity labels. His relationships with men are emotionally and erotically charged. With Louis, his bond functions as a romantic partnership: they share a home, raise Claudia together, and experience jealousy, betrayal, longing, and heartbreak that mirror a dissolving marriage. The intensity of their attachment extends beyond companionship into possessiveness and desire.
Throughout later entries in the series — including The Vampire Lestat (1985) — Lestat forms similarly intimate connections with male characters such as Armand, while also maintaining relationships with women across different periods of his long life. His attraction is consistent, not situational. He does not “experiment”; he loves and desires across gender lines.
Although the early novels stop short of labeling him bisexual, Anne Rice later addressed the question directly in a public FAQ, clarifying that Lestat did not restrict himself by gender.
Lestat is bi-sexual and always was. And all my vampires transcend gender in their orientation.
This statement reinforced what attentive readers had long recognized: the queerness in The Vampire Chronicles was deliberate, and Lestat’s bisexuality was embedded in the narrative rather than retroactively imposed.
Importantly, Rice’s vampires often describe their desire as transcending human categories. For Lestat, attraction is tied to beauty, intensity, intellect, and emotional connection rather than gender. His bisexuality is not framed as confusion or conflict; it simply exists as part of who he is.
The story has also been adapted for the stage, most notably in the musical Lestat (2006), though the production focused more on his origin story than on the romantic dynamics that highlight his bisexuality.
The 1994 film adaptation, Interview with the Vampire, starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, preserves much of the homoerotic tension between Lestat and Louis but stops short of explicit confirmation. Their dynamic is intimate, sensual, and emotionally volatile, yet framed in a way that allows mainstream audiences to interpret it as either romantic or an ambiguously intense friendship.
In this version, bisexuality remains visible but unnamed. The film reflects the cultural constraints of its era: queerness is present, but coded.
AMC’s Interview with the Vampire (2022-) transforms subtext into text. Portrayed by Sam Reid, Lestat is openly queer and explicitly engaged in a sexual and romantic relationship with Louis. Their bond is framed clearly as a love story — passionate, destructive, tender, and toxic.
In one key exchange, when Louis asks if he is “queer” or “half-queer,” Lestat replies that he is “non-discriminating”. The line serves as a clear articulation of his sexuality, although the series has not yet used the word “bisexual.” In the context of that conversation, the term would likely not have existed at the time. The representation in this new adaptation has been extremely clear; we see Lestat engaging in his attraction to both female and male lovers unapologetically. The show foregrounds what the books implied: Lestat’s bisexuality is neither accidental nor secondary.
The upcoming third season, adapting The Vampire Lestat and titled after the book, promises to center his perspective even further, offering additional space to explore his relationships and desires.
As bi representation, Lestat is complex. He is not a sanitized or model figure. He can be abusive, manipulative, and possessive. His relationships are frequently toxic. On one hand, Lestat subverts stereotypes that portray bisexual characters as indecisive or confused: his attraction is confident and unapologetic; he loves intensely across genders, and he is neither ashamed nor searching for a label to validate himself. On the other hand, his volatility intersects with longstanding tropes that link bisexuality to excess, moral ambiguity, or difficulty committing.
Still, many fans embrace his chaos. With the new series adaptation, audiences have reacted enthusiastically, often obsessing over Sam Reid’s interpretation of Lestat. Sam Reid has openly spoken about his interpretation being well-received and his process of portraying such a previously loved character:
I got sent a really lovely book recently with fan art they had drawn. It’s surreal because one of the things I did when I started playing Lestat was amalgamating as much fan art as possible to think, ‘how can we make this character alive’. To now see a whole bunch with my version of the character makes it feel like we are all making it together.
Ultimately, Lestat’s bisexuality has evolved alongside cultural shifts in media. From hinted intimacy in the 1970s novels, to authorial confirmation, to subtext in 1994 Hollywood, to explicit on-screen acknowledgment in a current TV series, his journey reflects broader changes in how bisexuality is depicted. He remains one of gothic fiction’s most visible bi characters.