Tan France Finally Told the Story of the “Queer Eye” Castmate Who Called Him a “Traitor” for Not Being Out to His Family
Tan France joined Jesse Tyler Ferguson on the June 23 episode of his podcast “Dinner’s On Me” and told a story he says he’d kept to himself for years.
It happened while they were filming the first season of the “Queer Eye” reboot in 2018. A castmate, who Tan won’t name, learned that Tan wasn’t out to his family and didn’t understand how he could be on the show while staying closeted at home.
What that castmate couldn’t see was what Tan was coming out into. He’s of Pakistani Muslim heritage, the child of immigrants, and the visibility that came easily to others wasn’t a language his family had ever spoken. As he put it, “My mom had never heard the word ‘gay.'” When he was a kid, his mom watched only Pakistani TV. There was no script for this in his world to borrow from.
Tan came out to his family two days before the “Queer Eye” premiere, knowing the show’s reach made it inevitable. He braced for the worst. What he got instead was this, in his words: “Oh, you’re not the devil just because you’re gay. You’re actually doing something really nice. Absolutely, you can stay.”
Tan France has been the fashion expert on “Queer Eye” since 2018. He’s married to Rob France, and the couple have two children. The point he kept returning to on the podcast wasn’t about one argument. It was that you can’t measure another person’s coming out without knowing the world they’re walking out of.
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