When TikTok star Pierre Amaury Crespeau and his boyfriend Nick Champa get to Italy this year, they have one big goal, to do what other TikTokers before them have done: recreate a pivotal love scene from the Pixar film Luca.
“They’re doing the dialogue between those two boys as the sound, and so people are recreating it,” says Champa of the folks heading to the Italian Riviera where Luca’s fictional town is located. “I was like, ‘We need to go do that. We have to do that.’”
Luca, director Enrico Casarosa’s animated film about a couple of young sea monsters and their adventures on the coast of Italy, is so completely evocative of the region — with a story that speaks to queer people everywhere — that you can imagine seeing this cute couple as the titular character and his new “friend.”
Crespeau and Champa, better known as Nicky Champa and Pierre Boo on TikTok, where they have 22 million followers — a lot of them LGBTQ+ youth, tween girls, and their middle-aged moms — who love their 15-30 second videos of goofy pranks, jokes, challenges, skits, and viral dances. Both men eschew gay labels; they consider themselves to be fluid in all aspects, including their sexuality. And their audience can’t get enough of the unconventional, free-spirited pair who first met at a movie audition in early 2017.
Both were aspiring actors, which is why you can easily imagine them performing Luca scenes — in Italy, France (where Boo is from), upstate New York (Champa hails from Syracuse), or any of the places this globetrotting couple loves to visit.
“They’re mermaids,” Boo begins explaining Luca to the uninitiated.
“No, they’re sea monsters,” Champa interjects. “They live under the water, but then come out, and they turn to humans; human is their mask. So, these two monster things…turn into boys in a gay relationship. It’s very fluid. Like, there’s no label, they don’t kiss or anything. But you know that there’s a deeper connection and it’s just like the evolution of that relationship.”
Champa and Boo, now 25 and 30 respectively, appreciate the film’s symbolism — the allusion to, as Champa calls it, “hiding your sexuality, blending into the world. And when you’re caught, you say, ‘No, he is. I’m not!’ And the town that was so fearful at the end of the day…[admit] they hated them so much, because they were afraid of them. Then they actually embraced them. It’s so touching because it’s so representative of what we all have to [go through]. And the fact that it’s not only a Disney movie, but it’s also taking place in Italy, and it’s just so romantic and gorgeous.”
“It’s very, very beautiful,” Boo adds.
Boo and Champa began their social media presence a year after they met by posting about their relationship on Instagram. The response from fans was immediate and more powerful than they’d anticipated. When TikTok emerged, the creators embraced the new platform’s potential and produced even more forms of content. Their audience skyrocketed.
But when they first met, Boo, now 30, admits he was a bit guarded about starting a relationship. “I was coming out of a tough break-up and after 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 heartbreaks, I lost the dream of a fairytale relationship.”
The couple says before getting together they were each “a bit heartbroken about our relationships prior… just turning out to not be what we always wanted,” but they quickly realized, “Whoa, we found each other!”
As much as he wanted to take things slowly with Champa, the connection couldn’t be denied. “I was telling you,” Champa recalls, turning to Boo, who often finishes his sentences. “I was like, ‘I’m ready to get this going. I want to commit to each other. I want to be with you.’ And he’s like, ‘Well, fine, you have to move in with me.’”
So they did, a month after they first met. They had already negotiated the intimate details of their modern relationship.
“Monogamous,” Boo says. “That makes us happy.”
“We’re very committed to each other,” Champa adds. And part of that commitment is sexual exclusivity.
