Update: A day after his bombshell comments, “Sesame Street” writer Mark Saltzman is walking back his claim that Bert and Ernie are gay.

Bert and Ernie are more than just friends, according to “Sesame Street” writer Mark Saltzman.

Saltzman, who joined the show in 1984, told Queerty the two puppets are a gay couple and their relationship is a reflection of his partnership with film editor Arnold Glassman.

“I was Ernie. I look more Bert-ish. And [Arnold] as a film editor — if you thought of Bert with a job in the world, wouldn’t that be perfect? Bert with his paper clips and organization? And I was the jokester,” he revealed to the LGBTQ blog. “So it was the Bert and Ernie relationship, and I was already with Arnie when I came to ‘Sesame Street.'”

The two puppets have been living together as roommates at 123 Sesame Street for the past 49 years but slept in separate beds.

Bert and Ernie have been considered icons in the LGBTQ community for years, but Saltzman said he didn’t write their same-sex relationship with an agenda, rather drawing from his own experiences.

“I don’t think I’d know how else to write them, but as a loving couple,” he said.

“Sesame Street” Workshop head Gary Knell denied rumors in 1994. “They are not gay, they are not straight, they are puppets. They don’t exist below the waist,” The Independent reported.

In 2011, producers said in a statement that Bert and Ernie were just “best friends” and “do not have a sexual orientation,” according to Deadline.

Sesame Workshop doubled down on Tuesday, tweeting an identical statement.

“As we have always said, Bert and Ernie are best friends,” the statement read. “They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves. Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.”