Ex-Sesame Street writer says his comments about Bert and Ernie being gay were misinterpreted

The New York Times

Mark Saltzman told Queerty he always saw Bert and Ernie as a "loving couple" inspired by his relationship with his partner Arnold Glassman, who died in 2003. Saltzman says he was trying to say that Bert and Ernie were like his real-life relationship -- opposites who found a way to love each other. “As a writer, you just bring what you know into your work,” he told The New York Times. “Somehow, in the uproar, that turned into Bert and Ernie being gay,” he added. “There is a difference.”