The sexuality of iconic Sesame Street duo Bert and Ernie has always been a hotly-debated topic. This week, we may finally have an answer to the question.

In a new interview with Queerty, Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman revealed that he — a gay man himself — always wrote Bert and Ernie how he saw him and his partner.

Saltzman joined Sesame Street in 1984 and at the time he was not out to his co-workers. Still, his relationship with his partner made it into the writer’s room.

“I always felt that without a huge agenda, when I was writing Bert & Ernie, they were [gay]. I didn’t have any other way to contextualize them. The other thing was, more than one person referred to [my partner] Arnie & I as ‘Bert & Ernie.'”

Saltzman added, “I was Ernie [in the relationship]. I look more Bert-ish. And Arnie 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. So it was the Bert & Ernie relationship, and I was already with Arnie when I came to Sesame Street. So I don’t think I’d know how else to write them, but as a loving couple. I wrote sketches…Arnie’s OCD would create friction with how chaotic I was. And that’s the Bert & Ernie dynamic.”

That said, their sexuality was never discussed in the writer’s room. “I would never have said to the head writer, ‘Oh, I’m writing this, this is my partner and me,'” Saltzman said.

There was no question in my mind that they were gay after seeing that framed photo of them together hung in their home:

And much of popular culture accepted it as fact. In 2013, The New Yorker released this cover depicting Bert and Ernie watching the Supreme Court decide the fate of LGBT couples’ right to marry:

Sesame Street moved to HBO a couple of years ago and still airs on PBS. Now that these remarks are out, one might hope that HBO will encourage Sesame Street to get a little more diverse in the sexuality department.

Edit: Annnnd it looks like they’ll never be gay for each other on air. In a statement on Tuesday, Sesame Workshop said:

As we have always said, Bert and Ernie are best friends. 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.

By that logic (puppets = no orientation), no characters at all can have a sexuality. Huh.