Jonathan Van Ness was the first pom-pom boy in Quincy, Illinois. In the fourth season of Queer Eye, he, along with the rest of the show’s Fab Five, went to perform a makeover on his favourite music teacher, Kathi Dooley, a woman famed for her fiery red mullet. Van Ness bounded into his high-school gym and launched into a full cheerleading routine, hitting every high kick (in high heels) while a huge crowd cheered from the bleachers.
The Queer Eye circus had sashayed into town. But in reality, the reception was far more frosty than the show made it seem. Although Dooley felt the love in that room, plenty of parents refused to allow their kids to appear on the Netflix hit, complaining that “it” – the LGBT lifestyle – should not be championed by a public school.
“The principal kept me out of the fray of parents who were complaining,” Dooley says. She describes Quincy as a “sheltered, very conservative and highly Republican town”, although one that is proud of its own. “They also don’t try to rock the boat.”
One pastor did try to publicly attack Queer Eye, however. He wrote a letter to the local paper, which is owned by Van Ness’s family. His mother chose to print the letter, which speaks of the “homosexual lifestyle … being condemned by God” and adds: “The further we allow ourselves to drift from His truth, the greater darkness we will be walking in. What are we teaching our children?”
“That was very hurtful to Jonathan,” says Dooley of the letter itself, especially as the pastor and his wife were close to his family. “She was actually their cleaning lady and kind of a nanny to Jonathan growing up. Jonathan did tell me she thought she could read a few Bible verses and ‘fix him’, or that he would see the light. Obviously, that didn’t happen.”
Queer Eye’s tried-and-tested formula – groom, group hug, pep talk, repeat – was at its most moving in that homecoming episode. In a teary confession, Van Ness told Dooley she had saved his life, and the lives of so many other students, with her support and acceptance, and that he wished she would nurture herself the way she had always done with others.
So have the Fab Five made her better at self-care? “I just don’t really do that,” says Dooley. “Karamo gave me all of his self-worth lectures. He said for every two things I do for students, I have to do one for myself.” She has been trying, she says – heading to St Louis to watch musicals with her husband, even going on a spa day. But she is still busy with her last season of music competitions before she retires next summer. “Every week when we go to competitions, people run up and ask me for my autograph and my picture. Way beyond Illinois!”
Is she tempted to regrow her notorious mullet? “No, I’m not going back to it.” In fact, Van Ness has flown back to town twice to cut her hair. “He really doesn’t want anyone else to touch it!”
The Fab Five have been spreading their message of goodwill and fabulousness around the US, using their influence to campaign for equality rights with Nancy Pelosi – and Van Ness recently became Cosmopolitan’s first non-binary and openly HIV-positive cover star, and its first solo non-female cover in 35 years.
The Queer Eye experience opened Dooley’s world up to much more than the joys of a new haircut and more me-time. “Jonathan’s mom and I flew to New York to see him perform at Radio City Music Hall. Talk about overwhelming: 6,000 seats filled and this little kid from Quincy, Illinois, on stage. Unbelievable.”