That Queer Eye & Nailed It! Crossover Taught Us A Lot About The Fab Five

Pretty much everyone loves Queer Eye, a show in which five men help sad, unstylish people reconstruct their lives with fashion, skincare, home design, and self-love. And pretty much everyone loves Nailed It!, a show that reveres the joyful side of Pinterest baking fails.

Both shows just so happen to be Netflix originals, so it seems only natural that, at some point, there would be a crossover between the two. And when the Fab Five — aka Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Karamo Brown, Bobby Berk, and Jonathan Van Ness — finally got a chance to take the Nailed It! stage (er, kitchen) to create tiny fondant cupcake versions of themselves, it shed some light on how, exactly, each of them perform under pressure — which, for most of them, is not well at all.

Karamo gave up almost immediately, calling the kitchen the “sunken place,” and had to be cajoled back into the competition by co-host Nicole Byer. Jonathan started his task with enthusiasm, but once he realised that Tan was doing much better with him, he spent more time trying to sabotage Tan’s fondant than working on his own cupcake. Eventually, he decided that his cupcake was perfect with a kind of confidence that seemed to imply that his cupcake really was perfect (reader, it was not), proving that, if nothing else, Jonathan is a true champion of faking it ‘til you make it.

Tan fared much better, initially taking Karamo under his wing, teaching him how to bake, and ultimately creating a cupcake with a flavour that the judges loved. But Jonathan’s sabotage of his work got under his skin, and he took to his Instagram story on Friday to reveal how much, exactly, Jonathan had affected his performance. He said he was “annoyed” that the Nailed It! editing was done in way that made his icing look bad, when really, he claims, it was Jonathan’s fault.

Meanwhile, Bobby quietly killed it with his own cupcake recreation of Jonathan — which, if you think about it, totally tracks with his whole stint on Queer Eye. Bobby is far and away the least flashy member of the Fab Five, but he also does the most work. In every episode, he manages to rehaul entire homes while the subjects are off getting facials with Jonathan and having heart-to-hearts in the car with Karamo. With his flair for design, ability to keep his head down, and clear knack for performing well under a time limit, it’s unsurprising that he ended up winning.

Then, there was Antoni. Because he is the alleged food expert of the group, he was asked to serve as the guest judge, and was thus able to evade the Nailed It! pressure entirely — but it likely also strengthened the resolve of many of the “Antoni can’t cook” truther-seekers out there.

The special episode has been released on YouTube in full, so even if you don’t have Netflix, it’s definitely worth giving a watch. All of the Queer Eye guys are, as always, delightful in it — but after you watch, you’ll surely be a #JusticeForBobby stan, too.