Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog Break Up: The Real Story

Photo: John E. Barrett/The Muppets Studio/ABC

For decades – don’t you dare mention how many! – Miss Piggy has been an international star of television and feature film, a best-selling author, a trend-setting fashionista and the very paradigm of porcine pulchritude. (Her words. Not ours.) But now, with her new behind-the-scenes ABC TV series,

The Muppetspremiering on Sept. 22, the plush pig has taken on the most startling and unexpected role of her life – a single lady. The star, who hosts Up Late with Miss Piggy, a talk show within the new documentary-style show, opens up to PEOPLE about the real reason she and the frog are no more:

The Heartbreak

Where do I begin to tell the story of how great love can be? And let’s admit it, the frog and I had a great love – one of the all-time greats. Right up there with Romeo and Juliet, Bogart and Bacall, Jay Z and Beyoncé. And then, one day, pffft! It’s over.

How did it happen? How does anything as epic as our fabulous love affair suddenly come to an end? William Butler Yeats (a poet I found on the Internet) said it best in his poem “The Second Coming”: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”

I know, it’s poetry. It doesn t have to make sense.

Still, I must admit that line about things falling apart, centers not holding, and loose anarchy describes my relationship with Kermit to a T.

The Revelation

In the past year or so, I realized that while Kermit and I were great together, we might be better off apart. Oh sure, we cared deeply about each other, but we also wanted different things from life.

I wanted to be trending on all social media platforms. He wanted to “blend in with so many other ordinary things.” I wanted to go out and soak in the A-list nightlife. He wanted to stay home and soak in a tub of tepid swamp water. I wanted to live like a star. He wanted to live like a frog. I wanted Hollywood. He wanted vines.

Despite these differences, we stayed together. After all, the public adores us together – and who are we to deny an adoring public?

Then, one day, I reached a tipping point.

I remember that day like it was just this past June…which it was.

In June, moi received the coveted Sackler Center First Award from the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. This award, honoring extraordinary women who are first in their fields, has been given to such fellow famous people as Toni Morrison, Sandra Day O’Connor and Julie Taymor. As I was wrapping up my memorable acceptance speech, a silly little thought popped into my head, “Remember to get your parking validated.”

That was it! Validation! I’m a strong woman and I need validation! No strong woman – regardless of species – should go through life in a co-dependent relationship with a hard-headed man amphibian or otherwise.

Sure, Kermit and I had a great time together. But now, it’s time for moi.

Life Without Kermit

As I begin a new chapter in my life and career, I want the world to know that I will always appreciate the frog and all that he has brought into my life – the stardom, the happy times, the sad times, the broken dates, the endless waits, the lovely loving, and the hateful hates, the conversation with the flying plates … I wish I were in love again.

(Sorry, I forgot this is print and went right into a Sinatra song cue.)

But now, it is finally my moment to grab hold of the future and turn it into a binge-watching Lollapalooza of outrageous, titillating, side-splitting entertainment.

At last, I am my own pig, a proud Porcine-American who calls the shots on her own show – and shares all the drama, comedy, ups and downs, sturm und drang and all that jazz, of being a successful, powerful, extraordinarily talented woman in Hollywood – who just happens to work with her amphibious ex-boyfriend [on The Muppets].

Of course, as any newly single lady knows, there is a lot more to life than work. Which is why I am taking this opportunity to officially announce that I am dating … a lot!

In addition to going out with A-list actors, directors and producers (I draw the line at writers), I will also be dating non-famous people – extremely good-looking non-famous people – as well as men who are not in my league but who desperately want to go out with me.

If they’re rich, I’ll see them too – but only for a photo-op. (For details about whether you qualify, see my agent.)

So fasten your seat belts, sweetie. It’s gonna be a fabulous ride!