Frank Oz is the voice of dozens of puppets and muppets as one of Jim Henson's earliest collaborators — and now the storied puppeteer is lending his voice to the debate over whether "Sesame Street" characters Bert and Ernie are gay.
"I created Bert. I know what and who he is," Oz wrote, squashing the idea that Bert and Ernie were a couple.
The decades-old discussion over Bert and Ernie's relationship status raged on Twitter after former "Sesame Street" writer Mark Saltzman told blog "Queerty" he wrote the duo as a couple based on his own real-world relationship with film editor Arnold Glassman.
"It seems Mr. Mark Saltzman was asked if Bert & Ernie are gay. It's fine that he feels they are. They're not, of course," Oz wrote in a tweet. "But why that question? Does it really matter? Why the need to define people as only gay? There's much more to a human being than just straightness or gayness."