On a recent Thursday afternoon, beauty YouTubers Desi Perkins and Katy DeGroot found themselves in the same place with a stretch of free time. So they decided to get to work.
Having just wrapped their joint Zoom interview with E! News, "We're actually making a day of it now," Desi shared. "We're going to maybe film some stuff together."
A literal throwback Thursday, if you will. Because once upon a time the IRL BFFs would spend nearly every day shooting videos together as they bulked up their fanbases on YouTube (a combined 5 million-plus subscribers), Instagram (6.6 million between the two) and now TikTok.
But these days, with multiple businesses to run (Desi oversees her Dezi eyewear brand and Dezi Skin; Katy launched clothing brand Thirty Years with husband Jon in 2021), when the Los Angeles-based pair are able to hang out with one another, they'd much rather create memories than new content.
"We're always like, 'We should film TikToks!'" Katy admitted in their exclusive sit-down with E!. "But we never do. We just want to hang out and do nothing."
Echoed Desi, mom to son Ocean, 2, and daughter Harley, 5 months, with husband Steven, "We are both so busy, when we get the chance to be together, we're exhausted and we just like to hang out. Sometimes we don't even film ourselves together and people are like, 'Are you guys okay? Did you break up?' And we're like 'Never!'"
Still, it's quite the thrill for fans to see the OG influencers together, as evidenced by the hundreds of comments, most asking if the two were announcing another collab.
But even when the pair aren't working on a group project (they've released collections with beauty brand Dose of Colors and curated a bundle for Maybelline in 2018), "We're on FaceTime hours a day," shared Desi. "I don't think there's a day that goes by that we don't actually talk."
To celebrate Galentine's Day, the "besties for the resties" who liken their first meeting to a scene out of Step Brothers—as in, "Did we just become best friends?"—let E! News sit in on one of their chats.
E! News: Take us back to the moment you two first connected.
Katy DeGroot: I had just moved down from the Bay Area and I didn't really know a lot of people and I feel like just doing YouTube videos brought us together. We had a lot of similarities in terms of what we liked. We had the same vibe.
Desi Perkins: Here's the thing: Katy and I make fun of each other all the time. And I remember when we started doing that, people were like, "You guys are so mean to each other." But we have brothers. And so when Katy first said something to me and I was like, "Did she just—?" I had my eyes on her. Then one day we were having this conversation and she was such a bad ass that I'm like, "That's my best friend right there. I love her." That's when I knew we were meant to be.
E!: What was the moment you realized your careers as beauty influencers were really taking off?
KD: I thought it was just going to be a fun little weekend thing as I worked my other job. I was working at Sephora headquarters and it was when my boss was like, "Oh, I heard you have a blog, here is some of our Sephora collection lipsticks." I was like, "Did I just get free lipstick?" I lost my s--t. After that I was like, "Okay, this is so cool, I have to keep doing this."
DP: One of the biggest creators, Vegas Nay, she was like the it reposter, and she reposted one of my looks. My notifications were rolling. And I couldn't believe it. I was jumping up and down. I gained so many followers and she really is the one who put me on the map.
E!: What's it like to have someone who really gets it by your side through all the highs and lows?
DP: It's awesome when you have a friend that's truly, truly supportive of you. Because there's a lot of frenemies out there and people who really don't want to see you doing well. And sometimes that has nothing to do with their friendship with you, it's something they struggle with. But I've always felt like I could tell Katy anything and she's always happy and vice versa. She and I have grown together at the same trajectory, which makes it even better because we've experienced the same highs and lows together and we can talk about it. Being business owners, too, we can talk to each other about the struggles and it's so helpful to have that connection with somebody.
E!: Do you think that's one of the benefits of longterm friendships—you get to discover the people who are truly there for you?
DP: It's the best when you find the real ones.
KD: We've gone through so many phases of life together. We started out in our 20s partying and having fun. And now we both have started businesses and our lives have changed and she's a mom of two kids. I feel like a lot of people could find reasons to grow apart, it just makes our relationship stronger.
E!: You have your own businesses and teams, but do you still run ideas by each other?
DP: I think we're actually our run-by-each-other team. Because Katy and I are the creatives in both of our businesses. I'll try things on for her clothing and she'll try on sunglasses for me and I'll ask her, "Do you like these? What would you change about them?" And we use each other to get notes and feedback.
KD: I feel like we talk about everything. Before it was about just lighting or when to post or what type of video should I film. And now we talk about a whole different scope of marketing, influencer outreach, all of this stuff that we are learning simultaneously.
E!: At this point, how do you balance the content creation side and your businesses?
KD: I don't. I'm not a really hardcore scheduler. Neither one of us are. But I think that's what makes us us. We just get it in where we can fit it in.
DP: I have told myself I'll post every single day for the whole month on TikTok because it's a new platform and I want to grow that. I'm an all or nothing babe. That's actually how I started Instagram, too. I posted every day for a month and that's how it happened. So I was like, let me post what I'm doing that day or something that's very natural for me. That way I don't feel like I'm doing too much extra work. I just put my phone on a tripod and I'm like, "Let me capture this really quick."
E!: What about dealing with some of the downsides of the industry?
KD: I definitely have called her several times either crying on FaceTime or just like, "I can't do this anymore!"
DP: It's really tough, mentally. It's a lot of moving parts constantly and things go wrong all the time and there's so many different people's opinions coming your way. So it helps to just, like, release. We vent and then we feel better.
KD: It's free therapy.
E!: What's next on the career checklist for each of you?
DP: I really want to focus on finding out who I am as a creator now, post-mom. I have less time. I can't spend all this time running a business and six hours on a YouTube video.
KD: My passion that I had for makeup will always be there, but it's definitely started leaning more toward fashion. So I really just want to keep going full throttle in that direction. I feel like now I finally have more of a sense of self after 2020.
E!: What's an ideal day like when you get to hang out?
DP: We're big on food. We're so chill that we really like to do low-key things. Back in the day, we would love to just hang out in Katy's living room on her couch and get Baskin Robbins ice cream. And now we do kids' stuff because of my son.
KD: I've done a lot of kid activities in the past year. It's nice to have that energy into things or else stuff can get kind of boring.
DP: She's good at it. And the other day I left her with Harley for the first time.
KD: I think I did a really good job. I'm just saying.
DP: You did FaceTime me, like, 10 minutes later saying, "She's crying. Can you make her stop?"
KD: It was just a whole big bottle fiasco. I didn't want to go off-script with her schedule. It was only one hour, but I really think I held things together.
E!: What's the best part of your friendship?
KD: It's the FaceTime calls where whatever we need to talk about, nothing is ever off-limits.
DP: We're always on the same wavelength. Sometimes we'll text each other the same thing at the same time. We just have this really good flow between our friendship. We're similar in a lot of ways, but super different to the point where we just balance each other out really well. Yesterday we both texted each other—
KD & DP: "Girl."
KD: That's when you know the FaceTime's coming.
DP: You're about to get some good intel. That may be my favorite part, actually.