Helen Mirren has officially declared a new queer icon—and it’s not a celebrity, it’s the humble tomato. Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with costar Pierce Brosnan to promote Netflix’s The Thursday Murder Club, Mirren caused a delightful stir when she linked gardening tips to plant sexuality. While Fallon showed off salsa made from a tomato he’d grown himself, Mirren jumped in with advice.
Wiggling a bent finger in demonstration, she said, “Incidentally, I just want to give you a tip about growing tomatoes. You know the little flower? Well, a good way to get a tomato out of a flower is you have to tremble the flower like this.”
Fallon laughed and protested, “I’m not doing that—at all to—my tomatoes!”
“You’ve got to. A tomato is a bisexual thing, you see,” Mirren insisted, prompting even more laughter.
She explained she’d recently learned this because of her own tomato troubles. Scientifically speaking, tomato flowers contain both “male” and “female” reproductive parts—meaning they can self-pollinate or pollinate others.
While that’s not the same as human bisexuality, Mirren’s playful framing has already earned tomatoes a spot in queer pop culture.
