Speedy From Queer Eye Is A TikTok Star

In Queer Eye Season 7, the Fab Five meet Speedy, a wheelchair user who uses his TikTok channel to “push people to be their best,” as he explains in the show. Karamo revealed that he actually discovered Speedy on TikTok for the show. Unsurprisingly, he caught Karamo’s eye because Speedy’s TikTok page currently boasts over 62,000 followers and 1.7 million likes.

Like on his TikTok, Speedy discussed on Queer Eye the tragic accident that led to him becoming paraplegic. On April 25, 2020, when he was 18, he was in the car with his mom and aunt when an F-150 truck hit them. Their car flew off the road and hit a tree. Speedy went through hours of surgery on his spinal cord. When he awoke, he was told he was paralyzed from the waist down. He also learned his mom and aunt died in the crash.

Before the accident, he said he dreamed of being a professional basketball player and using the money to give his mom a better life. But at the start of the episode, he admitted that he rarely played or watched games anymore. He said he prefers to stay at home instead of going out — even though the home he lived in had accessibility issues — because he felt self-conscious about his wheelchair.

By the end of the episode, though, he had a new, accessible apartment and a determination to use his story to motivate others. In the long term, he imagined becoming a trainer or a coach. He also realized that being able to help people meant allowing himself to “be more vulnerable” and, in turn, “allow more people to help me,” he said.

Today, he continues to share his story on his TikTok, even showing how he was featured on ABC’s WGNO nightly news.

Speedy also shares plenty of life updates, like in a September 2022 post where he revealed he is attending college virtually and confirmed in the comments that he’s on the dating scene. On Feb. 5, he revealed he got two new tattoos on his knees. “Skinny ‘ol legs,” he joked, showing them off now after admitting on Queer Eye that he never wore shorts because he was too embarrassed to show them in public after the accident. He celebrated his 21st birthday in November 2022, and on Apr. 13, he said he finally got his “dream car,” and he remembered the third anniversary of his crash and his mom’s death.

Through his posts, he explains and normalizes what it’s like to live as a wheelchair user, like when he showed how he drives a car without using his legs. (Essentially, it’s a bar that can be pushed and pulled with his hand to engage the gas or the brake pedals.)

He also shares messages of positivity. “‘How do you deal with negativity and the haters’? I just ignore it,” he said in an Apr. 13 TikTok. He notably filmed the video on a basketball court, which means he kept up with playing basketball after Queer Eye.

And, clearly, Speedy has definitely kept up with his impeccable fashion.