Fired voice of Kermit the Frog says he’s ‘devastated’

Lawrence Lucier | Getty Images

Muppet Kermit the Frog and his operator Steve Whitmire take questions from the audience at Barnes & Noble Lincoln Triangle on November 14, 2003,in New York City.

It isn’t easy being green. But no longer being green is apparently even harder.

Steve Whitmire, the puppeteer who was fired after 27 years as Kermit the Frog said Thursday he is “devastated to have failed” Muppets founder and his mentor Jim Henson.

Whitmire has been with the Muppets since 1978, and took over as Kermit after Henson died in 1990. He wrote an emotional blog post in response to his firing a day after it was made public.

He said he was let go against his will, and would never have left voluntarily.

“For me the Muppets are not just a job, or a career, or even a passion. They are a calling, an urgent, undeniable, impossible to resist way of life,” Whitmire wrote. “This is my life’s work since I was 19 years old. I feel that I am at the top of my game, and I want all of you who love the Muppets to know that I would never consider abandoning Kermit.”

Whitmire said he was informed that Kermit would be recast in October, and has kept silent in the ensuing months in the hopes that he could get his bosses to change their minds. He said he offered “multiple remedies” to the reasons he was given for his firing.