Bert & Ernie are actually a gay couple, 'Sesame Street' writer reveals

Iconic duo Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street are a gay couple, a former writer for the show has confirmed.

Since the show first aired in 1969, the fuzzy Muppets have amused viewers with their relationship - which includes bickering, and lots of laughter. Now, in an interview with Queerty, Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman revealed the best friends are also a couple.

According to Saltzman, who joined the show as a writer in 1984, he always wrote the pair as lovers. “And I always felt that without a huge agenda, when I was writing Bert and Ernie, they were,” he said in response to a question about the duo’s sexuality. “I didn’t have any other way to contextualise them.” Saltzman also revealed the muppets were a reflection of his own relationship with film editor Arnold Glassman, which impacted how he wrote the characters. “I don’t think I’d know how else to write them, but as a loving couple,” he said.

The possibility of a homosexual relationship between the two Sesame Street characters, who live together in an apartment on the show and who are considered gay icons, has been debated by fans as well as the show itself.

Producers insist that the beloved characters are merely friends and that “gay” doesn’t remotely describe their bizarre underworld of sexual deviance.
Sesame Street: 'Bert and Ernie are not gay, they are depraved pansexual perverts'.

'Sesame Street' says Bert & Ernie are NOT a gay couple.