Jonathan Van Ness

Jonathan McDonald Van Ness (born March 28, 1987), also commonly referred to by his initials J.V.N., is an American hairstylist, podcast host and television personality. He is best known as the grooming expert on the Netflix series Queer Eye, for his work on the web series parody Gay of Thrones, and for hosting the Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness podcast. He is also known for comedy tours, the 2023 tour entitled Fun & Slutty with Jonathan Van Ness.

Early life

Jonathan Van Ness was born March 28, 1987, to parents Mary Winters and Jonathan Lyle Van Ness, and raised in Quincy, Illinois. He said he comes "from a family of journalists", being the sixth generation of his family-owned newspaper. This refers to broadcast and newspaper conglomerate Quincy Media and the company's local flagship newspaper, the Herald-Whig; Van Ness's mother is the vice president of Quincy Media, and he is a descendant of the Oakley family, which has controlled the company since the 1890s. Van Ness's 9th great-grandmother, Patience Bacon Miller, was one of the founders of Northampton, Massachusetts, and was the first female surgeon in America.

When Van Ness was younger, he was sexually abused by an older boy at church, which laid the foundation for self-destructive behaviors. In his early teens, he used online chat to socialize with older men, and sometimes meet with them for sex. Although always comfortable in his gender expression and sexuality, he says it took time to navigate other people's reactions. He uses they/them, he/him, and she/her pronouns.

Van Ness was the first male cheerleader at Quincy Senior High School and continued cheerleading in college at the University of Arizona, where he majored in political science. One month in his initial semester at college, he used his monthly allowance on cocaine and, too embarrassed to ask his parents for funds, turned to sex work.

Van Ness trained at the Aveda Institute in Minneapolis. After graduating, he worked in Arizona for five years, before moving to Los Angeles in 2009. In 2018, Van Ness was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Variety Series for the series.

Since 2015, Van Ness has hosted the weekly podcast Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness. His podcast took off upon the airing of the first Queer Eye episode.

Beginning in 2018, Van Ness has starred as the grooming expert on the Netflix revival of Queer Eye.

Books Van Ness's memoir, Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love, was published in October 2019. His memoir discusses his past and how it helped sculpt his future.

In 2020, Van Ness released a picture book titled Peanut Goes for the Gold, which tells the story of a nonbinary guinea pig named Peanut and their adventures as a rhythmic gymnastics prodigy. Peanut is inspired by Van Ness's own childhood pet.

In 2022, Van Ness released a collection of essays in a book titled Love That Story: Observations from a Gorgeously Queer Life.

Personal life Van Ness is non-binary. Although he has stated a preference for using the pronouns he/him, he has also used she/her and they/them interchangeably. He explained his gender in an interview with Out, saying, "Some days I feel like a man, but then other days I feel like a woman. I don't really — I think my energies are really all over the place. Any opportunity I have to break down stereotypes of the binary, I am down for it, I'm here for it." In 2019, he revealed that he is HIV positive.

On April 4, 2019, Van Ness, Bobby Berk, Tan France, and Antoni Porowski visited Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to discuss the Equality Act, a bill that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of classes protected in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On September 25, Van Ness announced his endorsement of Elizabeth Warren for president in 2020 based upon healthcare being a human right.

On June 23, 2020, Van Ness and Queer Eye costar Bobby Berk praised recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that ruled that LGBT employment discrimination was a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. which passed the House but ultimately stalled in the Senate following a filibuster.

In December 2020, Van Ness revealed that he had married his partner, Mark Peacock, earlier that year.