Jonathan Van Ness, Queer Eye’s queen of positivity, and Nancy Birtwhistle, the Great British Baking Show’s duchess of dessert, are Instagram besties. Can you believe?
In March, Van Ness told the British music magazine NME that he was a huge fan of the Great British Baking Show and especially a super fan of Birtwhistle—season five winner (season one for US viewers).
My biggest Christmas present was Nancy [Birtwhistle, winner of season 5]. She followed me on Instagram–I’m like obsessed with her, my whole family follows her, she’s doing her second season of all of her little tips and tricks for like 365 days straight, she got a new haircut… I’m obsessed with Nancy.
Van Ness has his own obsessives, who’ve probably noticed repeat shout-outs to the star baker in his feed since Birtwhistle began following him.
The mutual fandom was already real when in early May, the British granmother upped the love by posting a video thanking Van Ness for sending followers her way. She asked him what he likes to eat in a DM and made a special recipe just for him—Texas sheet cake. The large slab of chocolate cake gets doused with a fudgey topping and toasted nuts straight out of the oven, and Birtwhistle likened the dessert to a British-style traybake. In her introduction to the recipe, she says, “Jonathan is really like really dead famous, but not only is he famous, he’s really really kind.” This is peak social media positive vibes and it is cute.
The Great British Bake Off is one of the very few reality shows where the contestants do in fact turn up expecting to make friends. The worst behavior in the show’s history involved a melting ice cream cake, a trash can, and a fit of pique. On the GBBS, Birtwhistle distinguished herself not only as an exceptional baker, but with her sly sense of humor as well, constantly referring to the preening Paul Hollywood simply as “the male judge.” Meanwhile, over on Netflix, amidst the radical compassion and intent listening faces that define the “new” Queer Eye, Van Ness stands out as the sunniest ray of sunshine illuminating a pile of fuzzy kittens with his sparkly golden light. They are the nicest of the nice.
The comments on both of their posts about the Texas sheet cake are full of declarations of love for QE and GBBS, love for Nancy and Jonathan as individual humans, and love for their friendship. Every commenter is dead. Except @girlgonevine who is L I V I N G and then dead when Birtwhistle asks her what that means, saying, “I’m still learning social media speak 😀♥”.
This crossover is giving us fierce showstopper realness with rainbow sprinkles on top and Instagram is very here for it, henny.