The Best Thing About ‘Bros’ Isn’t Billy Eichner, It’s Debra Messing Shading Sarah Jessica Parker

Billy Eichner’s romantic comedy may not have hit big in theaters, but now that Bros is streaming on on-demand—available to buy or rent on platforms like Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Vudu, YouTube, and more—audiences have a chance to discover this genuinely hilarious and heartwarming gem. Even if the sharp humor and sincere soliloquies on what it means to be gay in 2022 don’t win you over, you’ll surely be sold on Debra Messing’s hilarious scene. It might just be the best cameo of the year.

Messing has long been held up as an icon in the queer community—and among gay men especially—thanks to her Emmy-winning role as Grace on the groundbreaking gay sitcom, Will & Grace. So, first of all, kudos to Eichner and co-writer Nicholas Stoller (who also directed) for choosing an absolutely perfect candidate to cameo in their film. Double kudos for coming up with a perfectly logical reason for her to be there, too: Eichner’s character, Bobby, is a curator at a brand-new museum of LGBTQ+ history, and they need rich, celebrity donors. Who better to prop up a queer New York City museum than ultimate ally Grace Adler?

A museum worker announces to the staff that “Debra Messing is in the building,” and is met with a (very apt, very hilarious) gay gasp from the staff. But unfortunately, Eichner’s character is also in the middle of a panic spiral over the fact that his pretty boy crush (Luke Macfarlane) isn’t texting back. As soon as he comes face to face with Messing, it all comes pouring out. “I actually think you’re the perfect person to ask,” Bobby says, before proceeding to dump all of his boy troubles squarely in Messing’s lap.

Now, perhaps in your average romance movie, this would be the part where the wise, experienced mentor (Messing) comforts the lost, flailing protagonist (Eichner). But Eichner and Stoller brilliantly have Messing do the exact opposite.

“What I do Debra?” Bobby asks, clearly thinking this is his gay-mentor-movie moment.

“You know, for the last 25 years,” Messing responds carefully, “I have been listening to every gay man on earth complain to me. I am not my character. I am not every gay man’s best friend.”

From there, Messing pretty much loses her shit.

“Did I waltz in here and lay all my shit on you? Answer me! Answer me!” she screams. And then, when Eichner starts stammering out an apology, “SHUT UP!”

And then, when the under-utilized Dot-Marie Jones comes out to see what all the yelling is about, Messing asks if she’d have any trauma dumping she’d like to do.

“No,” Jones replies.

“Of course not!” Messing exclaims. “Because lesbians have their shit together!”

But Messing saves the best for last—a playful jab at Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker— as she’s storming out of the museum in a haze of righteous anger.

“I. am not. Graaaaaaace!” she screams. “It is a character! I won an Emmy for it! I even beat Sarah Jessica Parker! People forget! I’m shaving my head.”

And yes, Messing really did beat out Sarah Jessica Parker for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for Will & Grace in 2003. (She also beat Jennifer Aniston from Friends, Patricia Heaton from Everybody Loves Raymond, and Jane Kaczmarek from Malcolm in the Middle that year.) We haven’t forgotten, Debra!

Parker likely doesn’t mind the joke, given that she took home the Emmy for Sex and the City the next year in 2004. But it’s still a bit of niche humor for anyone who was overly invested in the comedy actress Emmy races in the early 2000s—like, say, gay men in their 40s. (Again, Stoller and Eichner absolutely nailed it with this cameo.)

Of course, the great irony is that while Messing is screaming about how she’s not Grace Adler, she’s playing into exactly the kind of wacky, over-the-top humor that made her such a star on the sitcom in the first place. No one does a hysterical breakdown like Messing, and this scene is proof she’s still the queen. Can we get her another Emmy just for this cameo? She’s earned it.