Bombshell news from Sesame Street: Elmo is gay.

(And you thought it would be Bert and Ernie.) Well, not exactly.

TMZ is reporting that Kevin Clash, who has voiced Elmo since the 1980s, has taken a leave of absence from the show after a man claimed that he had a sexual relationship with Clash that began in 2005, when he was sixteen. And Clash was forty-five.

Clash doesn’t deny the relationship. He only denies that part of it occurred when the man was underage.

There was a recent PBS documentary about Clash called “Being Elmo.” While mentioning that Clash was divorced and had a daughter who’s in her late teens now, they didn’t mention this little extracurricular activity. The man has lawyered up with the same firm that represents one of the Jerry Sandusky rape victims. Ouch.

I guess all those years fisting a little humanoid felt boy finally got the better of him.