A Kiki with ‘Black, Fat, Femme’ Hosts Jon Higgins & JoHo Daniels

Loving oneself often feels impossible, especially in today’s world, but queer icons Jon Higgins and JoHo Daniels are here to remind you that your nuances are what makes you beautifully unique.

Their podcast, BFF: Black, Fat, Femme, is ultimately a kiki between friends on all things pop culture, fashion, beauty, wellness, and daily life, but it is also giving voice to two leading queer, fat, and Black changemakers while calling in the world to examine and understand what it means to unapologetically love oneself. The show was developed by iHeartMedia’s “Next Up,” an initiative that is helping to aid more marginalized voices in creating and sustaining successful podcasts.

Guests have included Pose co-creator Steven Canals, RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Mayhem Miller, Queer as Folk star Armand Fields, and many more.

As respective trailblazers, Higgins is an educator, professor, national speaker, freelance journalist, thought leader, and media critic who examines the intersections of identity, gender, and race in entertainment, while Daniels is a writer for fashion, body liberation, philanthropy, and LGBTQ experiences.

OFM caught up with the duo to talk more about BFF and its importance.

For those who have not yet checked out BFF: Black, Fat, Femme, what can they expect?

Jon Higgins: Off the top, they can expect good things! When I initially set off to do this show, I was like, “Oh, this is going to leverage my brand.” There were all these conversations about branding, and then it kind of just fell into being able to hang out with my friend JoHo every week. Now, it’s more along the lines of just two good friends talking about all kinds of stuff in spaces we aren’t given to talk about. Whether it’s white supremacy or fatphobia, JoHo and I created a space to kiki about the things that most queer, fat, Black people don’t really get a space to talk about.

JoHo Daniels: Very much that. You’ll get boldness; you’ll get authenticity, and you’ll get laughs. We’re constantly kiking with our guests; Jon and I are educators as well. So, audiences will learn some shit, which is good. Everything we do, learning and educating, is through this lens of joy.

How did the concept for this podcast come to fruition? Who came up with the idea?

JH: Basically, long story short, in May 2021, a friend of mine tapped me on the shoulder and was like, hey, iHeartRadio is doing this podcasting program. I had another podcast at the time, but my co-host and I knew it wasn’t really going anywhere, so we came to the consensus to stop and not waste our time anymore. My friend asked if I had any podcast ideas, and I was like, “Not really, but why?” They thought I should apply for the podcasting program, so me being me, I waited until the last minute. I kind of dragged my feet, and when I saw that time was running out, I was like, “Shit! Let’s get this done.”

So, I submitted three different ideas, including Black, Fat, Femme as an idea of a space for Black, fat, queer, femme people to chat and kiki. I got interviewed about that concept because I guess they were very interested in it, and I learned in the first week of July 2021 that I was picked for that program. In September, I met Will Pearson, and he was like, if you are thinking about doing something with a co-host, let me know, and we’ll work that out. I was like, “Oh, snap!” I initially developed this show in my head with a co-host, and I knew JoHo was the person that was going to do it with me.

I had already had it in my mind years prior that if I ever did another podcast that centered around Black and queerness, JoHo would be the person to tap. Sure enough, he came onboard, and we did a pitch deck of three episodes. Then, in December, we found out that Toyota was our sponsor, and they picked us up full-time.

How did you two initially meet?

JD: We met when I was a student at CSU Long Beach. Jon was a director there for one of the departments. They tell a story of when they officially first saw me, which is really quite special to hear, but the first time I remember meeting them was when they were facilitating a LGBTQPOC group. I always saw them around, and CSU Long Beach piqued my interest because it’s a super diverse school. I feel like it’s a lot more diverse than a lot of other universities. I was still coming into myself.

Obviously, I was a student, and Jon worked for the school, so I would see them everywhere. About a year later, I started working for the school as well, and I’d see Jon at these events, and they’d be like, “Come here! Join us! Come take pictures with us!” I needed this energy in my life because Jon was somebody you could automatically tell has gone through so much in life but hasn’t let anything take them down. Embodying the words of Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise.” Jon was also a featured panelist on so many things, so I got to speak with them in different capacities and got to know them well.

JH: I’ve always felt like JoHo was like my little sister (laughs). I have a brother, and we’re very close, but it was like, I don’t have a little sister. I always look at JoHo and think, that’s my family. Then when I met his parents and sister at graduation, we instantaneously clicked. JoHo and I will always be close. Seven years later, here we are doing our own show.

Ultimately, what do you hope listeners take away from the podcast?     

JH: I think the biggest thing for me is kind of going back to this notion of sisterhood. I think about this often. I find that a lot of queer people, specifically queer, Black people, and I don’t want this being taken out of context, we are mean to one another often. The queer community, as a whole, we’re very catty, and we can be very snappy at each other without really knowing. I think for me, I never got that from JoHo. It’s always been, “I’ve got you; you’ve got me; we’ve got each other, and I think that’s the thing you really hear with Black, Fat, Femme.

I feel like when we have our interviews with people, when we’re talking on the show, there’s very much this notion of community. We have to have each other because the world, in so many facets of our intersections, is already trying to pull us apart. Blackness is being pulled at; queerness is being pulled at; femme is being pulled at—There’s always someone ready to come for you in some regard. I feel like Black, Fat, Femme has become this safe haven. I look at it in the sense of, girl, come on in here and sit down. Take your shoes off; put down your armor.

JD: I fully agree with community. Everyone wants to laugh with us; everyone wants to kiki with us, but no one wants to really give us space to be actual people. That’s important to the idea of how we view Blackness. Everyone wants to see Blackness culturally, socially, and physically, but no one wants to experience Blackness in all its beautiful nuances.

So, with BFF, people get to see two Black, fat, femme hosts, and our guests get to be themselves and use their voices in ways that matter. Use your voice to challenge the system. Use your voice to talk about the joy that we have. Use your voice to talk about how we view ourselves and the world through our own personal lens. I want people to take away the true realness that we actually contain beyond just the kiki and the party.

When it comes to men or people who are male presenting, why do you think being plus-size and femme still has such negative stigma?

JH: We actually have a whole episode on that. I believe episode two was all about masculinity. I was the one who was so passionate about pushing that episode forward, and I’ll say this. I think, one, because the world hates women, and there’s so many nuances around why I say that the world hates women. We could be here for the next 30 minutes talking about this, but I think when you talk about this idea of what it means to be feminine and why the world hates feminists, it really gets to the core that the world very seldomly respects the idea of femininity.

When you have someone like me or JoHo presenting so willfully and proudly, I think a lot of cis men, specifically cis men who subscribe and hold very closely masculinity, they can’t contrive, why would you want to be treated less when you already are treated less? I’ve said this and I’ve written about it, too. I feel like femmeness has become my superpower. It has been the thing that has held me when no other spaces or places could hold me. People have a problem with it because they’ve been taught to hate it, but at the same time, I think this show is teaching folks that we need to relearn the ways that we love ourselves, and a part of loving me means me loving my femininity.

JD: As I say through the lens of fatness, when you think of so many Western ideologies, fatness has always been seen as the number-one cause of death, and femmeness has been seen as the worst thing that you can socially be. If you’re fat, you’re ugly. If you’re fat, you’re unhealthy. If you’re fat, you’re bad. You’re seen as gluttonous, sinful, all these horrible things. People don’t want to be fat because they don’t want to be perceived as unhealthy or unbeautiful, and we’re trying to help erase that stigma with the podcast.

Like I said earlier, everybody loves us in a sense. You think of fat, Black women; everyone wants a Black, fat woman because the stereotype says she can sing; she’s funny; she can get the house down boots, but she is much more than that. People want to enjoy us, but they don’t want to love all the nuances of our identity. That’s a very strange place to be.

What is the best advice you can give to someone who is unhappy with themselves?

JD: First of all, there’s no advice I can give that’s going to teach you to love yourself. I can’t teach you that, but what I can encourage people to understand is that the world is not designed to make us happy. We have an obligation to ourselves and an obligation to our joy to make ourselves happy and understand that loving yourself does not mean that you’re going to every single moment of the day.

I was in a wedding earlier this year, and I immediately thought, “How do I look in the bridal party? Am I too fat next to you?” Then I remembered, it doesn’t matter. Like, girl, this is not your day (laughs). Then two, who cares if you do look too fat? There is no “too fat” or “too thin.” So, my advice, you have to learn how to take the power out of the impact of those words for yourself.

Jon said this in an episode; there’s loving yourself and liking yourself. Liking yourself is teaching yourself how to treat you, and loving yourself is teaching others how to treat you. By struggling to love yourself, then you are struggling to teach others how to treat you, and we should all teach others to treat us the way we want to be treated ourselves.

JH: I’ll say this. Leaning into liking myself has kept me paid! I have created a career out of loving every bit and piece of who I am, and while the industry has tried to knock me and a lot of the things that I’ve done down, I’ve hit some walls, and I’ve had some issues, I think being my authentic self is what keeps opportunity at my door. So, my advice to others is, take the time to unlearn all the negative and terrible stuff that has been put on you. This is the work that I’ve done with my therapist. My therapist is like, “Do you believe that, or was that something someone else made you believe? I’m like, “Fuck, that’s something that somebody else made me believe!”

So, separate those two things. Is it truly something you believe about yourself, or did somebody else put that on you? I think the other part is, how can these people have comments about me when they don’t know me? Half of the people who have terrible things to say about me don’t want to know me or never cared about me. They don’t pay my bills, so why am I letting these people live in my head rent-free? If I’m going to tell anybody how to take care of themselves and how to love themselves, stop letting people live in your head rent-free. That is the best advice that I got from my therapist, and I’m so happy to pass that on.

BFF: Black, Fat, Femme is streaming on all digital platforms, and new episodes drop every Tuesday. Stay up-to-date with the podcast on Twitter and Instagram @blkfatfemmepod.

Connect with Higgins: Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Website

Connect with Daniels: Twitter | Instagram | Website

Photos Courtesy of BFF