Warrior Kevin Locke falls victim to teammate's Twitter prank

A prank tweet that publicly announced Warriors' fullback Kevin Locke was gay was being treated seriously, the team's chief executive Wayne Scurrah says.

The tweet, which would have turned up on more than 18,000 of Locke's followers' accounts read: "Think I might be gay ... RT if ur not against it.''

Seven people retweeted the post and three favourited it before it was deleted.

Mr Scurrah said someone had had a "poor attempt at making fun at Kevin's expense, certainly not at the gay community's expense''.

"It wasn't appropriate and we're talking about it with Kevin.''

Moments after the tweet was deleted, Locke apologised, said he wasn't gay and somebody must have got hold of his phone and hacked his Twitter account.

In a later tweet, Locke wrote: "Last thing I'll say about the prank tweet. If it caused any offence I just want to say sorry once again - my phone, my responsibility!''

He blamed a teammate for the prank.

Rainbow Kapiti spokesman Phil Quinn said the response by Locke was appropriate.

It wasn't such a "big deal'' for someone to be described as gay if they weren't, he said.

Locke reacted well in saying he was not gay and leaving it there, Mr Quinn said.