Rumours have circulated for years that Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie are in a relationship and now Bert has hinted at it on Twitter.

Bert, who shares a bed with Ernie, wrote on the Sesame Street Twitter feed during Pride season that his hair was “mo” – a slang word for gay.

Comparing his trademark mohawk to that of A-Team character Mr. T, Bert said: “The only difference is mine is a little more ‘mo,’ a little less ‘hawk.'”

The children’s programme has had a number of gay celebrity guests in the last year.

However, show producers poured cold water on hopes of a puppet gay icon.

Ellen Lewis, Sesame Workshop’s vice president of corporate communications, told UPI: “We’ve always reached out to a variety of actors and athletes and celebrities to appear on the show, and our programming has always appealed to adults as much as children.

“Honestly, the idea that anyone would interpret [this season] that way never crossed our minds.”

In 1994, Reverend Joseph Chambers, a Pentecostal minister from North Carolina, tried to have Bert and Ernie banned under state sodomy laws.

“Bert and Ernie are two grown men sharing a house and a bedroom,” he railed. “They share clothes, eat and cook together and have blatantly effeminate characteristics.”