What did the world do to deserve a fantastic, loving human being like Jonathan Van Ness? More importantly, how can we make him our BFF IRL? Because sometimes you need a pep talk and JVN is who we want delivering it.Of course, we know from watching every second of content the Fab 5 throws at us, that JVN is one of the most supportive and accepting people on the planet (not to mention, the most stylish—sorry Tan) but his Monday night appearance on
Jimmy Kimmel Live! had us feeling all types of FOMOOBBFFWJVN (Fear Of Missing Out On Being BFFs with JVN).Over the course of approximately 15 minutes, Jonathan shouted out his friend's talents (we see you, JVN stylist,
Alison Brooks), applied beard oil to Jimmy's face, talked about progressive social policies he'd like to see implemented in the U.S. and led the audience in a brief meditation. Should we get "We gotta breathe, honey" tattooed on our wrist or is that too much?
While JVN is often fun and bubbly, it's the moments of gravity that really make him prime BFF material. Since he's been on tour promoting his memoir,
Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love, in which he reveals he's
living with HIV, he's come in contact with many fans who are facing the same challenges. He told Jimmy that whenever he encounters a fan who wants to share their story, he goes right into supportive bestie mode."I'm so grateful that people feel secure to talk to me about these things," he said. "I'm like, 'Who's your doctor? Where we going? Are we signed up? Do you have questions?' I'm real practical—I'm like, 'Let's get this together.'"Jonathan has been vocal on his book tour about how complicated and scary it was to navigate the health care system in the United States to get medication following his diagnosis at the age of 25. Thanks to modern advancements in HIV and AIDS treatment, people who are HIV positive can live healthy lives by taking an antiretroviral treatment to keep the levels of the virus in their blood undetectable (undetectable = untransmittable). JVN is acutely aware of the number of programs patients might have to navigate if they don't have health insurance, so he feels a responsibility to use his own platform to help people out."It was really a collection of decisions that made me want to talk about this," he told Jimmy. "And it was scary... but I've been telling a lot of people to speak truth to power and I was like, 'I think I need to take my turn to speak truth to power.'"Pardon us—we'll just be moving to LA to pursue a friendship with JVN.
