Naturally Tan

by Tan France

I promise I have no control over this. I wish I could help, but all I can say is that the lovely team at ITV Studios does the casting, and we legit don’t get to know about our heroes until a couple of weeks before meeting them on the show.

  I’m going to a wedding next week, and I don’t even know where to start. Could you send me links to options you think could work for me?

  I love you for feeling so connected with me and my opinions on style that you would come to me for help, but I truly get this question literally twenty-plus times a day and already have almost every hour of my day filled with shooting, press, travel, photo shoots, keeping up with social media, and being a husband, sibling, and friend. Watch Queer Eye, and I’m almost positive I’ll give a close enough suggestion for your occasion or requirement on there. Again, I love you. Thank you for responding so well to my style suggestions.

  You didn’t create the French tuck. It was created by women and repackaged by a man. You.

  You’re right, I totally said that I invented the French tuck. It’s something I said in every episode and every interview. I insist on it being a quote used in every article about me. I’m surprised it took someone so long to catch me out. Call the fashion police. You got me. You know me and the gays. We’re always trying to take down women.

  You wouldn’t know good style if it slapped you in the pompadour.

  This one actually made me proper LOL.

  Where are the other boys?

  I literally don’t know. We all live separately and have very separate lives. I love them and see them as much as I can when we’re in the same city and not working, but when not at work, my guess is as good as yours, love!

  TUXEDO

  Everyone has that fantasy when they’re a kid like, What if I became famous one day? Stranger shit has happened, so why not? Weirdly, in my fantasies as a kid, I was becoming famous as either a pop star or an actor. Weirder still, I can’t sing for shit, so I should have known that was never a possibility for me and moved on from that delusion. Still, I would think, If I were famous, how would it feel? Who would my friends be? And how would they become my friends? Would my manager reach out to their manager and set us up on a friend date?

  I love the show 30 Rock—in fact, I watch it every morning as a way to start my day. When we’re filming, Antoni and I will watch it together whenever we have a free moment. We’re constantly quoting lines from the show. It’s one of the many things that brought us so close together.

  In one episode, the character Jenna Maroney starts to date James Franco. He’s actually in love with his body pillow, but the relationship is set up by his manager to throw the press off the crazy man / body pillow relationship rumors. That’s the way I imagined such relationships happened, where someone behind the scenes orchestrates the whole thing.

  But now I can tell you that no, this is not the case.

  Here is how famous people make friends: they slide into your DMs, just like everyone else. I know. I know. Who knew?

  People you never in a million years would dream would know your name will just pop up unannounced in your direct messages and say, “Hey, do you want to hang out?”

  It’s so weird to receive DMs from people who are megastars, saying, “Hi, Tan! Do you want to come over later?” Yes, bitch, of course I do. You crazy? You think I’d have the bollocks to say no to you? It’s so bizarre. It’s also strange being summoned. When I first came out on the scene, I was fine being summoned, because I felt like lowly Tan who should be grateful that showbiz has allowed him to be a part of the scene.

  When I first started getting contacted by celebrities, I would say yes to everyone. It was so interesting to see these people treat me like their equals even though some of them had been around for years and I was so new to the game. But as time has passed, I’ve gotten more perspective, and I realize I don’t have to say yes to everyone. These guys are just regular folks when the glitz and glam is gone, so I should know that there are some I will get along with better than others. It’s wise to be more selective.

  When people from other reality shows contact us, I get that they would watch us. They’re in the same game. But it’s always shocking when it’s an Oscar winner or when it’s a performer who’s legendary and whose music I listened to when I was a kid. That shit you never get used to. That still feels insane to me.

  There are some people whom I desperately wish would slide into my DMs. Do I dream Adele will do it? Yes! I pray for that, I think, more than I do my own health. But I’m positive she’s too cool for that, and for me. Still, there are other major stars who have reached out, and they’re the ones where I’ll stop and think, Ho-ly shit, I can’t believe this is my life.

  The weird thing is, I had thought, I’ll always feel out place when I’m around these people. I’ll always feel aware that they are superstars and I’m just Tan from South Yorkshire. But once you get to know them, you start to see them as just regular friends and acquaintances. And the bigger our show becomes, the more I start to realize that no one loves to be treated like you can’t have a regular conversation with them.

  I don’t know at what point famous people are no longer regular people, because I’m still very much dweebo Tan. I wonder if I will always feel that way, or if I will become a celebrity and act too cool for that shit. But I hope I never do, because I love that feeling I have now. I love feeling like I managed to sneak into the coolest party in the world and I’m yet to be caught out.

  My life has changed in many positive ways. I’ll have access to shows or opportunities—like when I’m able to go watch a live taping of SNL or be on an episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. It was always a dream of mine to visit SNL, and that was a thrill. The energy backstage is incredible. Everyone is pumped to give the very best performance. I remember feeling like I just wanted to jump on set with them. It was all so exciting.

  But life has changed in many less positive ways, as well. It’s not necessarily a negative, but I’m not really able to go out and about freely anymore. I promise I’m not moaning about this, because I actually find it funny. The amount of times my husband has turned to me in those situations and giggled after the person stops for a pic and says, “It’s just dummy you; I don’t get what all the fuss is about!”

  Jonathan and Antoni love me very much until we’re together in a city. Then they hate me. They mostly hate me for my hair and my skin, which makes me instantly recognizable. At this point, it seems rather impossible to walk around and act like I’m not that queer guy off the telly.

  For the first few weeks of the show, I thought I could just put a cap on and nobody would know who I was. But I discovered it serves me no purpose whatsoever. People still recognized me, so what was the point of hiding my beautiful hair? Waaaaah.

  When we’re in New York especially, we cannot walk without it taking quadruple the time to get to our destination. We can only go from a place to a car to another place. There is no such thing as a public outing without being stopped every twenty seconds. The bigger the show gets, the less I can walk around anywhere.

  Still, people stopping us on the street is beautiful. They always have the nicest stories to tell about the show and how it’s impacted their lives—the dialogue in their homes, their relationships with their families. Connecting with these people feels so, so profound. It makes me feel like we’re not just a TV show, we’re more of a social movement. I like to live in a bubble where I can pretend no one’s watching and that if I say or do a stupid thing, no one will see, and they definitely won’t quote me back to myself. But of course, that is not true. Pretending no one is really watching makes it way less stressful a process. When I take a moment to think of just how many people are watching each episode and know me rather intimately, it gets me nervously sweating.

  My favourite thing is when somebody shouts, “Hey, Tan!”

  I’ll still stop and think, Oh, fuck, do-I-know-you, do-I-know-you, do-I-know-you?

  Until finally they’ll say, “You don’t know me. But I kno
w you!” Oh, thank gosh.

  And the craziest thing is that they do feel like they know me. I get a lot of hugs and also a lot of lifting. Like, literally lifted up in the air while being hugged. I’m the small one on the show, so I get lifted up a lot. But lemme say this. I’m actually five foot nine, which is average in the UK and the US. I’m really not that petite. (You would never dream of lifting Jonathan up; he’s six foot three.) The lifting is definitely not my favourite. I’m an affectionate person, but I don’t like getting to second base with a stranger. No more lifting me up, please, guys. It’s way too much body contact for me.

  I was one of those people who would roll my eyes when celebrities say, “I’m just a regular person.” You’re not just a regular person! You live a proper glam life, and I will never understand, I’d think. My god, was I wrong. Now that I’m in this and people behave in a similar way on the street, I just want to be like, “No, man, I’m just regular old Tan. I’m the same person I was seven months ago.” But I don’t, because I remember how that feels. When people I meet are super nervous and shaky and they drop their phone because they’re so anxious, I want to say, “I’m the same as you. I’m just lucky enough to have this as my job.”

  The truth is, if you run into me on the street, know that I’m about to go home and eat ramen and watch The Great British Baking Show. Nobody will text me—I won’t get a text all night, other than maybe from Jonathan. My everyday life is pretty simple, and I usually don’t do anything remotely what you’d expect of someone in this business. Simple dinner, TV, and in bed by 10:00 p.m.

  The other thing everyone needs to learn is how tagging works on Instagram stories. Many people think when you tag someone in a story, it only goes to their friends. But I can see that. I do see that. And when people tag me in a photo, it’s usually when I’m stuffing my face, or mid-squat at the gym, or doing something that I probably shouldn’t be, or else wouldn’t want to be, photographed doing. I’ll check my phone at brunch only to find someone from across the way has tagged a video of me. But I love calling people out. I’ll hold up my phone, and they’ll be mortified.

  One of the first times this happened was a few weeks after season 1 aired. I was at a packed brunch spot, and while waiting for the check, I checked my phone and saw I was tagged in a pic by a guy at the table across from us. I looked over at him and held up the unflattering photo of me, fork in mouth, and rolled my eyes. I caught him, and he was mortified. Ahhh, it’s the little things in life that give me pleasure.

  Another thing people love to do is start rumors. If I go somewhere with Antoni, people love to suggest we’re on a date. They’ll post a photo of us to send to their friends, but sometimes they’ll accidentally DM it to me. “Are you saying two gay men can’t be friends?” I’ll ask. “Let’s talk about it.” I love to call them out on that bullshit notion that two gay men can’t just be friends.

  I remember once I was out at a restaurant with a close showbiz friend’s partner. Whenever I eat out, I try to face a wall to minimize the exposure, and this day was no different. But still, people noticed us. I hadn’t seen his partner in a few weeks, so I held his hand for a second to tell him how much I’d missed him. Before I knew it, the big thing that day on my IG was that “Tan is sleeping with this person’s partner.” Even online publications posted the pic. It was so stupid.

  Honestly, at this point, I find these accusations funny. The boys and I mostly giggle at them, and we laugh at how stupid they are. But I can see how, after a few years, it can really grate on people. I have a newfound sympathy for Amanda Bynes. I get it now. I want to send her a note for all the times I’ve used her as punch line. It was a dick move, and I can’t tell you how ashamed of myself I am for that.

  It’s also weird to go from having no show to being approached to do other shows more regularly. I thought Queer Eye would be the only show I’d ever do. I never thought this could be a career option. It’s lovely but also terrifying. There is a lot of self-doubt and a lot of ego involved in doing this, and it’s a version of myself I’ve never known before. It’s amazing how quickly your perception changes into “I want this, I need this.” I keep meeting aspects of my personality I haven’t encountered and wondering, Do I explore this? Do I quash this?

  Most of the time, I question whether I’m even cut out for this industry and if I’m actually entertaining on camera. I sometimes worry that people gave me the job to fill a diversity quota. I sometimes worry that I’m not young enough to be seen as cool or interesting or worthy of starting an entertainment career at this point in my life. These things nag at me from time to time, and I have to remind myself that I’m in this job for a reason and that all I can do is focus on doing the best work I can. And when my time in this industry is up, I hope I can walk away knowing I tried my best to be as good as possible at the job while I had it.

  Everything moves so quickly, I sometimes don’t have time to process it. Every day, something major happens and there truly isn’t enough bandwidth to process any of it fully. I really should journal more, so when things do calm down, I can look back and figure out how I really felt about it all.

  Never in a million years could I have pictured everything that’s happened. First of all, that I would even get the job but also that the show would become what it’s become. I thought it was a crazy pipe dream of the creators thinking they could make lightning strike twice.

  The original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy was a pioneer, and it had a fundamental effect on gays in the industry. But they did it again with our show. I never thought it was possible. I thought it would be a cute niche show that maybe some gays would watch, and maybe some girls, but not that it would achieve critical acclaim.

  To be asked to present at the Emmys—to win Emmys—that blows my mind. Did I ever expect to win Emmys? Hell no. Here’s the thing: I assumed the show would get a nomination because of what it represents. I thought it would be a really bad move not to nominate us for anything, because we represent diversity like I’ve never seen on TV before. But I truly didn’t think, for even a second, that we were going to win.

  We knew that the nominations were being announced in August. The cast and some of the producers decided we were going to meet in a room in the apartment building where we were living in Kansas City and we would wait for an announcement. One of the producers kept clicking Refresh on the page.

  We saw we were nominated for Best Structured Reality Program. We jumped and we screamed, and all of us cried. Up until that point, I didn’t think I cared about an Emmy. I was just surprised to even be in this fucking business. But when we realized we had been nominated, it hit me. I thought, I live in America. I’ve been nominated for an Emmy. I’ve been nominated for a show that talks about gay people. I’m a brown person, and I’m being recognized for being me. It made me cry so hard. I never thought in a million years that I would feel pride like that.

  I had so many feelings and so many thoughts running through my mind, and it really made me emotional. I stepped out of the room and called Rob on FaceTime, and as I cried, I told him, “Oh my god, we’re nominated for an Emmy.” Then, as I was on the phone, I realized everyone in the room was screaming again. We had been nominated for three more.

  One of the nominations was for best casting. I was really excited about that one, because that meant us and the people we help on the show. The other nominations weren’t for us, necessarily; they were for the show. Yes, the show is about the Fab Five and how we help people, but that wasn’t explicitly what the awards were for. But this one felt really special.

  Weirdly, an hour after we found out, we had to go shoot the show like it was just another day. It was a really jolly time on the set. That night, we had a celebration dinner with the entire cast and crew.

  Then, the morning of the Emmys came. I had chosen my outfit about two weeks prior.

  I had worked with a red carpet stylist for the event. There are different kinds of stylists: A wardrobe stylist (that’s me) goes into
real people’s closets and helps them dress. An editorial or red carpet stylist is a person who has connections to designers. They work with a designer to come up with a look for a celebrity or pull looks from a bunch of designers for an editorial shoot. So in this case, I worked with a stylist whom I’d found at my PAPER magazine shoot.

  When I’m preparing for an event, I’ll tell him exactly what I want from different designers, and he’ll pull the options for me, and I’ll put my look together myself. Normally, with a celebrity, the stylist will pull the pieces and put the looks together for them, so they don’t have to worry about it. But I am way too particular for that.

  I actually don’t love wearing a tuxedo. I think they’re super boring. I know it can be nice to keep it classic, but looking at a red carpet, it’s like, “Oh, look, another man in a black tuxedo.” Do you stand out from the crowd? No. Plus, there’s so much pressure associated with them—the pressure of looking your best, the pressure of keeping up. To expect a man to wear a tuxedo on a red carpet is kind of an old-fashioned request. Sometimes men go bolder, and they’re criticized for it. Even a suit would be better than a tux! Why not let men be more creative with what they’re wearing? I say, show your personality!

  I don’t love formal wear in general, because I think it embraces a very white, upper-class expectation of wealth. Since I’m not a formal-wear guy, sometimes I throw on sneakers with my tux. I don’t want to look like a fifty-five-year-old white guy who goes to a golf club and wouldn’t call me the nicest words behind my back. I don’t love that guy, so why would I want to dress like him?

  When I got my first tux for the premiere of our show, I found it only five hours before the premiere, at a Suitsupply. This was back before the show aired, and designers weren’t interested in dressing a no-name. I had a stylist pull options for me to choose from, but he pulled things that I definitely didn’t want, as they were either too loud or too plain. I needed to do this myself. So I went to Suitsupply and found a crème velvet jacket with a satin lapel. I knew instantly how I wanted to style it—with a white shirt, no bow tie, a skinny black trouser, and black shoes. I was in and out of the store within twenty minutes, knowing I would love my look.