The series famous for giving makeovers is getting one of its own. Come February on Netflix, Karamo Brown (culture), Jonathan Van Ness (grooming), Tan France (fashion), Antoni Porowski (food and wine), and Bobby Berk (design) will assume the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy Fab 5 mantle once occupied by Jai Rodriguez, Kyan Douglas, Carson Kressley, Ted Allen, and Thom Filicia.
When the show — which follows the stars as they give holistic makeovers to straight men — premiered in 2003 on Bravo, it quickly became a cultural phenomenon, even winning the Outstanding Reality Program Emmy the following year. A lot has changed in the years since, though. “It’s a new time with a new audience,” series creator David Collins tells EW. “If the original round was about tolerance, this time it is about acceptance.”
Which means audiences — but especially each episode’s subject, or “hero” as they’re called — will learn more about the Fab 5’s personal lives as they ditch the concrete jungle of New York City to take on straight guys in red states. “In order to make the emotions bigger, you actually had to see how [the Fab 5] were reacting to being with a cop from the South who was a Trump supporter, [or] ‘hillbilly Tom,’ who refers to himself by saying ‘you can’t fix ugly,’” executive producer Rob Eric explains. “These guys walked away truly loving every single hero that they made over and talked about them for weeks afterward. It affected them just as much as they affected our hero.”