Martin Short Shatters Our Dreams And Insists To Bill Maher That He And Meryl Streep Are Not Dating: “Just Very Close Friends”

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Martin Short insists that he and Meryl Streep are “not a couple.”

The Only Murders in the Building star stopped by Bill Maher‘s Club Random podcast, where the host deemed the two a “power couple,” per Entertainment Weekly.

Unfortunately, his descriptor wasn’t quite correct.

Short clarified, “We’re not a couple. We are just very close friends.”

Short’s Oliver Putnam and Streep’s Loretta Durkin sparked a romance in the most recent season of the Hulu‘s Only Murders, but it sounds like life isn’t imitating art this time.

Still, rumors surrounding a potential real-life relationship between the two accelerated after the Golden Globes earlier this month, where Streep and Short sat next to each other. However, one of Short’s representatives denied the rumors, telling both The Messenger and People that he and Streep “are just very good friends, nothing more.”

Nonetheless, Maher argued on his podcast that they “should” consider dating, as “there’s nothing more powerful in Hollywood than a power couple.”

“It worked for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. It worked for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie,” he said. We can’t help but note that both “power couples” Maher used as examples have famously split, but we digress.

He added, “They’re like an electron and a proton. They circle each other until they — I’m not quite up on the chemistry — but something about [how] an electron and a proton have to find each other.”

With respect to their actual, respective romances, news first became public last October that Streep and her ex-husband Don Gummer were separated, although the two had “been separated for more than 6 years” at that point, per a statement obtained by Page Six. The couple had been together for 45 years.

Short was widowed in 2010 following the loss of his wife of 30 years and fellow comedian Nancy Dolman, who passed away from ovarian cancer, per CNN.

Only Murders in the Building is streaming on Hulu. Watch Short’s interview with Maher above.