Lily Tomlin had her reasons for waiting until recent years to come out publicly as a lesbian

Lily Tomlin wants to make this much clear: ‘I never did not come out.’

But she did turn down a Time Magazine cover in 1975 to announce she was gay – a step Ellen DeGeneres would take with the same magazine 22 years later.

It wasn’t known publicly until recent years is that Tomlin, 75, and her frequent professional collaborator Jane Wagner have been a solid couple for more than four decades.

The couple got married last New Year’s Eve.

‘We upped and did it,’ Tomlin tells the Washington Post in a profile this week ‘We thought we should get married because we can.’

Her reasons for not going public earlier in her career?

‘I wanted to be acknowledged for my work,’ she says. ‘I didn’t want to be that gay person who does comedy.’

It’s now been more than 40 years since she made her splash on TV’s Laugh-In with such indelible characters as Ernestine the telephone operator and a wise 5-year-old child named Edith Ann.

She parlayed her TV success into a movie career with an Oscar-nominated performance in Nashville and starred in such films as Nine to Five, The Incredible Shrinking Woman and All of Me.

On Sunday, Tomlin is one of five artists who will be feted with the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor which is later turned into a two-hour television special that airs after Christmas.

Tomlin has an idea for the part of the show honoring her: ‘What I’d like to see is a big stream of gay drag artists come out as Ernestine.’