Queer Eye star Tan France has revealed he feels "physically sick" when recalling his past attempts to conceal his cultural background as a gay man.
The 43-year-old, born Tanveer Wasim France, grew up in Doncaster as the son of Muslim Pakistani immigrant parents.
France recently joined the production team for The P Word, an Olivier Award-winning play that first premiered in 2022.
Written by Waleed Akhtar, the play intricately weaves the parallel lives of two gay Pakistani men: Bilal, portrayed by Akhtar, who is "ground down by years of Grindr and the complexity of being a brown gay man", and Zafar, played by Esh Alladi, an asylum seeker who has fled homophobic persecution in Pakistan to find refuge in the UK.
After experiencing the play for the first time, France described it as "emotionally charged". He told the Press Association: "I can handle some real emotion, but last night, because of the specificity, it really got me. I thought it was really touching and I couldn’t believe how much they managed to pack into 90 minutes."
He admitted to a "shameful" connection with Bilal, identifying with the character's "internalised self-hatred".
"I think that’s the reason why I struggled with my emotions yesterday, is because I saw myself in Bilal, or some of the actions that he takes," France explained.
He recounted his own efforts in his late teens to pretend he wasn't "that different" to feel accepted and safe. "It was to keep myself safe, and it was to feel like I might be loved, and if I lied enough about just how non-Asian I am, hopefully I could find a partner, and it’s one of the reasons I moved from the UK."
His decision to relocate to the United States was driven by a refusal to continue living a lie. "I was not willing to pretend any more about who I was, and I wasn’t willing to put up with the racism of it all. So, I moved to the States, where I could just be really Pakistani," he stated.
Now a proud advocate for his heritage, France expressed disbelief at his past actions, noting he was the first person to wear a sherwani suit to win an Emmy.
"I’m really proud of my culture and I’m really upset with myself that I was a version of Billy … but I think that’s the same path so many brown queer people take in the UK because they feel like there’s no other option."
France said that although he felt “physically sick” thinking about his past actions, he saw his support of The P Word as a way to spotlight the Muslim community.
Playwright Waleed Akhtar shared that since its initial run, he has frequently been approached by individuals deeply affected by the production.
"I felt this real responsibility to try and get it back, and unfortunately, the themes of the play just seemed to be even more relevant in 2026, so it felt like the right moment as well," he said.
The narrative of Billy and Zafar unfolds against the complex backdrop of the British asylum system and the impact of successive governments' policies aimed at reducing migration.
Akhtar revealed his initial hope that the play's themes might become less pressing over time. "I wrote the play in 2021 and had a naive hope that maybe it wouldn’t be an issue by the time it hit the stage or would be a time capsule piece … unfortunately, that has not been the case," he lamented.
His primary goal was to humanise asylum seekers, presenting them as more than mere statistics. "A lot of the time, when we see these stories about asylum seekers the story ends with them arriving in the country after they’ve been through horrors. But what I really wanted to do was also show that once you’re in the UK, the system grinds you down, and I think that was a shock for a lot of people and opened their eyes," he explained.
Despite its weighty subject matter, France praised the play for its comedic elements, describing it as "hilarious" at times. "The audience laughed so many times. I’ve never seen comedy used in a way to desperately save you from such an emotional moment, but it’s not just that it’s funny, it’s used in the most comprehensive way, like the way comedy should be used. I thought it was a masterpiece," he enthused. Akhtar concurred, stating his approach was to "lure you in with humour and then slap you with some politics."
The P Word is currently running at the Holloway Theatre, the main space of the Bush Theatre, until 27 June.
