Even Meryl Streep is not immune to the Hollywood rumor mill.
While it's not completely clear when these Hollywood icons officially met, Meryl Streep and Martin Short's friendship can be traced back nearly a decade. However, after the pair played love interests on Only Murders in the Building, fans began shipping the three-time Oscar-winning actor with the two-time Emmy-winning comedian in real life. (Fun fact: As a couple, they'd just be one Grammy shy of an EGOT.)
It's been nearly a year since Streep, 75, and Short, 74, first sparked relationship rumors at the 2024 Golden Globes -- and while their alleged date night may have been overshadowed by whatever conversation Selena Gomez was having with Taylor Swift that night, fans have been quietly keeping track of the alleged relationship ever since.
Here's a complete timeline of all those relationship rumors and milestones:
October 19, 2024: Steve Martin shares a screenshot of this exact relationship rumor timeline to his Instagram grid, with one small tweak: The actor added a "prohibited" emoji over his own face, so that he appears crossed out of the photo of himself, Short and Streep.
Fans in the comments section took his post as confirmation that the two are together, though the actor and comedian said no such thing explicitly. In fact, he did not share a caption, and his screenshot does not include the headline of the post, which is about the relationship rumors between his co-stars.
Still the people jumped to their own conclusions. "Are u confirming this relationship?!" one commenter begged. A second commenter shared, "did he just hard launch the relationship."
There were also plenty of jokes in the comments, because comedians flock to each other. Wrote one follower, "Ya know what they say- Steves a crowd." And another, referencing a viral TikTok sound about a third wheel, wrote, "And your friend Steve, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo STEVE! 🎵"
There is also another way to interpret his post, which is that Steve Martin wants nothing to do with the rumors about his co-stars. It's giving, "I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009."
If that's the case, we're very sorry, Steve! We didn't mean to drag you into this.
May 14, 2024: Martin reveals Meryl called him to request a role on OMITB. "The story with Meryl is she phoned me and said, 'I want to be on it,'" he told People. "They already planned that I would have a theatrical experience and there would be a love interest," the actor added. "So that was coincidental, but she just wanted to be on the show. She didn't know about [the love story]."
As for those relationship rumors, he said the attention has been "interesting" and doesn't mind the questions. "She's fabulous," he said. "There's no one who doesn't adore her."
September 2023 would have marked their 45th wedding anniversary.
August 29, 2023: OMITB executive producer John Hoffman tells The Wrap that Streep "thanked" him for writing the romance between her character, Loretta Durkin, and Short's character, Oliver Putnam. "It's pretty unexpected to imagine a pairing of Meryl Streep with Martin Short and watch them find this incredible connection together and, as Meryl said, to not have it be twee or about the age or about any of that," he said. "It's just a beautiful romance that you buy, I think because of who these two characters are. But then you see Marty step up in ways that are incredible and nobody works harder at it, comes in with more intelligence to the work and then to watch him have these scenes that break your heart and have to be played with such dramatic poignancy, riding the line of keeping it comedic, keeping it mysterious.... I'm amazed."
February 9, 2023: Streep, Short, and Martin attend a Broadway after-party in NYC.
January 17, 2023: Gomez, Short, and Steve Martin announce Meryl Streep is joining season three of Only Murders in the Building. In the clip, Streep refers to Short as "Marty."
June 8, 2017: The pair are seated together at the American Film Institute's 45th Life Achievement Award Gala Tribute to Diane Keaton.
February 3, 2015: Getty Images' oldest archived photo of Martin Short and Meryl Streep is taken backstage at his Broadway production of It's Only a Play.