Many incredible people received makeovers on season two of Queer Eye, but Tammye Hicks stole the show (and our hearts) as the Fab Five’s first female client. On her episode, the team confidently rolled into the remote town of Gay, Georgia to perform one of their signature overhauls, but it’s clear nothing could have prepared them for Mama Tammye, as she’s affectionately known — a religious woman whose house was originally slated to get the Bobby treatment, but asked to have her church's community center refurbished instead. She was so deserving that the Fab Five renovated both.

At several points in the episode, Bobby (design), Karamo (culture), Jonathan Van Ness (grooming), Antoni (Porowski), and Tan (style) found themselves overwhelmed by Tammye’s effervescence, occasionally breaking down in tears. We learn a lot about Tammye in the episode, but we also get to meet Miles, her gay son whom she struggled to accept before ultimately embracing him, and who now lives with her. At the end of the heartfelt episode, when Tammye proclaims her love for her faith and for her son in the remodeled community center, it’s nearly impossible not to cry.

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Since season two dropped on Netflix, Tammye says the reaction has been overwhelming. We caught up with her to talk about what her faith journey has looked like and what Miles has been up to. She also gave us a special message for LGBTQ+ fans of the show.

Hey Tammye! How have you been since we last saw you on Queer Eye?

Oh, great. It’s wonderful. It’s indescribable. It was a life changing experience. The week it came out totally changed my life, and not only my life but my son’s, as well as the community's. I’m living my best life.

Talk to me about your faith. Do you think the show depicted it accurately?

Yes. Let me tell you a little about myself. I was raised in a pentecostal church with a lot of strict rules and loving people. But when I went off to college, I said, “I’m gonna do what I wanna do and bump all that.” Then of course life happens, the bumps and the bruises and scrapes and bangs. I started looking for my faith.

When I had my son and my children, it was rough for us for a while. Then when Miles came out to me, I felt, “maybe I can pray it away.” Then I was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer, and life took on a whole new meaning. Within that cancer walk, things became clear to me. 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?”

I never told Miles anything like “get out of my house,” but I thought I was building him up with love when I was really doing the opposite. I asked him for forgiveness. It probably wasn’t a few months later that the Fab Five showed up at my doorstep. I thought, how divine is this? God spoke to me in that moment.

How is your son?

When I say he is wonderful! The work with Karamo and having him look at things introspectively has opened up a lot to him as far as who he is as a person. He is a godly, gifted boy. He’s finally seeing that and he’s seeing his place in the world and planet. Now he’s got the job and the career he’s always wanted. He’s a mortician and he’s loving that every day. His style, his dress, his grooming habits, he’s the fine gentleman I know he was born to be. He wants to help others. He wants to start his own funeral home and to help people who are suffering with AIDS. I mean, he just wants to help.

He’s still living with me right now. Actually, he’s going through an apprenticeship here. A corporate funeral home recently hired him. We’re having fun! He’s not in a hurry to go away, but I tell him, this is just a nest, baby! You need to fly.

He talked about his struggles with being Black in your town. Have you experienced that?

Yes. I was born in the early '60s. In the show, you hear about my parents being sharecroppers and how they grew up. I always say sometimes in the South, things can be at least 50 years in the past. Miles was raised in a small town, and sometimes small towns feel like people have their particular place in life, and as long as you stay in your place you’ll be fine. Being Black and being gay on top of that in the very conservative South? He struggled. But Miles never accepted the status quo. He never did, because I raised him not to accept it. He says, “I’ll change the status quo.”

What has the reaction to the episode been like from people in your town and beyond?

Oh my gosh, just overwhelmingly positive. I’ve received literally thousands of messages from around the world, countries I didn’t even know existed on the map. I’ve been receiving messages from people saying how they’re changing based on the love that was shown, that they’re starting organizations on their campuses. It’s been tremendous, and around home it’s the same way. I hear from a lot of parents who are struggling with the whole, “Oh my gosh, my child just told me I’m gay, let me hide it.” Everywhere I go, they start crying, like, “You just don’t know how you’ve helped me. I was caught up in the dogma of ‘I can’t love God and love my child at the same time.’” It has had ripple effects.

This will be a difficult question. Who is your favorite Fab Five member?

Oh my God! You can’t make this girl choose. Don’t make me choose, baby! The Fab Five represents the body, and a body is not itself without a head, a body is not itself without legs. Each one of them is so vitally important. I told them in the community center that God took those gifts in them and maneuvered them in such a way that they wound up together. They are a body of change. They're all equally my boys. They’re my boys! The team wouldn’t be itself if one of them were missing or if one had more status than the other, and I’ll also say that what you see on the show is what you get. There’s nothing fake about them.

What would your message be to LGBTQ+ people struggling?

To my LGBT people, 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. I feel like, sometimes people try to put God in a box. “Oh, he loves these people more, he loves this group more, oh, he can’t love this group.” But God, my son used the word “amorphic.” You can’t put God in a box. Your relationship with God does not depend on other people. It’s vertical. It’s not horizontal. That’s what I want them to know. 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.

Thank you, Tammye. I want you to know I cried during your episode.

[Laughing] Let me tell you a secret, baby. I cry too! I cry every time I watch it. Things are so hateful right now. Everywhere you look, you see hate. But love prevails. Love trumps hate every time. I feel like God put all that together. Love came knocking at my door in the Fab Five. I said, baby, that was God. You hear me?

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