Don't Worry, Wanda Winters Is Still All About Her Pythons After Queer Eye

At the end of Wanda Winters' season 4 episode of Queer Eye, she makes a shocking announcement. After more than 30 years as director of the Pythons Drill Team, a non-profit youth program that focuses on dance and discipline, she tells her team she's going to take a step back from running the everyday of the program. The Fab Five look shocked to hear her make such a declaration and Winters now admits she's not exactly sure why she said it either.

"Let me tell you," Winters tells Refinery29 over the phone. "I have not missed a beat since. I still take care of my drill team. So, no, I haven’t really backed down, I built this with my own hands, so it would be very hard to let go of it. But I do balance it now."

For decades, Winters has devoted everything she had to the Pythons, leaving little time for herself. Queer Eye showed her that she is more than her work and she thanks Karamo for that. "He really touched my heart," she says. "He told me, 'You’re more than just a drill team director and you can’t let people drain you.'"

Winters has taken those words to heart, but it hasn't been easy to make the changes she knows she should make. "When you’re used to taking care of others, you don’t have real time for yourself," she says of trying to practice self-care. "I’m still kind of working on that."

Since her time with the Fab Five last year, Winters has made tremendous strides. She cooks more vegetables and stopped wearing only Python T-shirts after her Taraji P. Henson style upgrade. She's making more time for her two daughters, who she goes out with once or twice a month. And she's slowly learning to embrace her natural hair thanks to Jonathan, who Winters says is definitely an honorary members of the Pythons. "Oh my goodness, I called a certain command and he went down in the splits and blew everybody away!" she says laughing. "He could be my number one Python, that’s for sure."

Most importantly, she's enjoying her time at home, which, don't worry, still has furniture in the living room. "I’m busy all day, most of the day," Winters says, "but I come home to a comfortable home and it makes me feel more relaxed and things like that. The balance is there, and I absolutely love it."

What Queer Eye taught her was that she's human and she's allowed to act like one. "I’ve been doing this for so long, it was almost robotic," she says of running the Pythons, who will perform in New York City later this month. "My life over the 30 years has been disciplined and demanding and I have to kind of bring that down outside of drill team so I can feel the beauty within me. So, that’s what this taught me: tone it down, Wanda, tone it down."