Following Viewer Backlash Surrounding Death of Lesbian Character Rana Habeeb, "Coronation Street" Plans to Introduce New Gay Character Later This Year

Remember last week with "Coronation Street"killed off fan-favorite lesbian character Rana Habeeb. She was the tragic victim of a factory roof collapse -- on her wedding day no less! LGBTQ fans quickly began complaining about Rana's death, citing the "Bury Your Gays" trope. Which I get, but it's hard to argue that "Corrie" lacks queer representation. I mean, we currently have Billy and Sean and Kate and Sophie and now there's Paul... And I recognize that Rana's death was brutal, but the actress also wanted to leave the show. So they could either have her break Kate's heard with a break-up, or they could do an epic death scene. I'm all about the epic death scenes!

But "Coronation Street" listened to the complaints and now its producers are casting an actor for a new gay character. Auditions were held last week for a new character named Kai. Kai will be a newly gay black man, who's also a rising soccer player. He will apparently come out to his brother Michael shortly after his debut, after a gay man comes looking for him at the family's new home.

Kai won't be out to his parents right away, largely because he's not sure how they will react or how drastically his life will change as others find out about him.

While I'm not concerned about the amount of LGB characters on "Corrie," I have noticed that many of the show's non-white characters have disappeared over the past year. So the introduction of Kai and his family will be welcome, purely from a racial diversity perspective!

It's unclear when exactly we will finally meet Kai.