Entertainment

These Photos Of 'Queer Eye' Heroes Jess and Mama Tammye Meeting Will Make You So Emotional

by Brad Witter
Christopher Smith/Netflix

File this under the heartwarming TV crossover you didn't know you needed. In a full circle moment, Jess from Queer Eye met fellow hero Mama Tammye and documented the emotional rendezvous on social media. Both of the reality show standouts made history on the hit Netflix series, with Mama Tammye becoming Queer Eye's first female client in Season 2, and Jess making her mark at the show's first lesbian hero in Season 3. It was their past experiences and individual connections to the LGBTQA+ community that truly brought them together, however.

Jess first teased "something exciting for y’all" on March 26 via her Twitter account. Then on Friday, April 5, she revealed the treat, tweeting, "surprise it’s me and mom @QueerEye" and later clarifying that "mama tammye isn’t my REAL mom," but rather her "chosen mom."

Mama Tammye echoed those sentiments on Instagram, as well as several photos, writing in the caption: "What a day! God has given me another daughter. I love you @jesslayica ! Thanks for coming to share in my life. Today was just the beginning!"

When viewers — and the Fab Five (AKA Antoni Porowski, Bobby Berk, Jonathan Van Ness, Karamo Brown, and Tan France) — met Jess in the Season 3 episode, "Black Girl Magic," she emotionally revealed that her adoptive parents kicked her out of the house when, at 16 years old, she came out as gay. The Kansas resident was also majorly struggling with her place in society, at the top of the episode.

"I had pretty much given up on kind, genuine people," she explained in the episode. "They expected me to be someone else: More black, less white; more gay, less gay. I feel like I don't belong."

After the guys worked their magic, Jess learned to fully embrace Karamo's powerful message: "You are a strong, Black, lesbian woman." In fact, she even uses the same phrase in her Twitter bio.

For her part, Mama Tammye, a selfless, effervescent, avid churchgoer from Gay, Georgia, admitted she once struggled to accept her gay son Myles. After he came out to her, Mama Tammye explained that she thought she could "pray it away," but after she was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer, she gained new perspective.

"Life took on a whole new meaning," she later shared with the LGBTQ-focused website, them. "That’s the time I talked about in the show. Jesus spoke to me and said, “You say you have the same heart and mind that I do, so why can’t you see your son the way I do? Why can’t you love him the way I do?”"

Jess also met Myles during her trip to Gay, Georgia, as seen in both Mama Tammye's post, as well as a photo Myles shared on his own Instagram account along with the caption, "SIBLINGS ❤️"

The meeting was surely beneficial for Jess, as Mama Tammye has been vocal of her support of her LGBTQA+, from a parent's perspective. In the same interview with them, Mama Tammye also shared her message to all young people struggling with their own identities:

"You are uniquely important to God. God loves you. He loves everybody the same. If God designed every single body with a purpose with the love that he had, then he put that love in everybody ... Go forward with the gift that god gives you. Live the best life, and live it in sight of, what are you here for? What is my purpose for humanity? He loves you. He loves you from your head to your toes. Your relationship doesn't depend on other people’s temporary opinions of you."

This also wasn't Mama Tammye's only recent Queer Eye reunion. In March, GMA co-host Michael Strahan surprised The Fab 5, by bringing out both her and Myles during the guys' sit-down on the ABC morning show.

As Mama Tammye told the Netflix stars during the appearance: "Not only did you transform my life, you transformed my family's, a whole community. And for that, I am eternally grateful."

Surely, Jess, as well as many other LGBTQA+ men and women, are also grateful for Mama Tammye.