Survival of the Thickest

Survival of the Thickest is a Netflix comedy series created by Michelle Buteau and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel. It premiered on July 13, 2023, with Buteau playing Mavis Beaumont, a New York City stylist whose life is abruptly upended when she discovers her long-term boyfriend, Jacque, has been unfaithful. The show develops from Buteau’s 2017 essay collection, Survival of the Thickest, and puts its author at the center of a fictional romantic and professional reset.

Mavis does not leave the city or become a wholly different person after the breakup. Instead, she has to find a new apartment, rebuild confidence, and pursue styling jobs while staying connected to friends and family. Her work places fashion and body-image politics directly in the story: Mavis is a plus-size Black woman seeking success in an industry that routinely narrows ideas of glamour. The series’ title deliberately turns survival into a question of self-worth, friendship, work, and desire, rather than physical endurance.

The ensemble includes Tasha Smith as Marley, Tone Bell as Khalil, and Liza Treyger as Jade among regular players. Bell’s Khalil is a trusted friend, while Smith’s Marley is another member of Mavis’s close circle. The first season also features Liza Treyger as Jade, a stylist in Mavis’s orbit. Their interactions keep the show focused on chosen family and on the practical labor of starting again.

Netflix renewed Survival of the Thickest for a second season in September 2023. The new season premiered on March 27, 2025, again with Buteau leading the cast. That renewal arrived soon after the debut season, indicating Netflix’s commitment to the series’ voice.

Before creating the program, Buteau had established a public profile as a comedian and actor. She is also the host of Netflix’s reality competition series The Circle and released the Netflix stand-up special Welcome to Buteaupia in 2020. Those projects make her authorship of Survival of the Thickest unusually direct: its leading character, creative perspective, and source material all connect to her.

The show is not a literal adaptation of the essays; Mavis is a fictional character. Yet the adaptation retains the book’s central concern with living in a larger body amid romance, work, and social expectation. By making a Black plus-size woman the romantic lead, Buteau and Sanchez-Witzel place that experience at the story’s center. Survival of the Thickest therefore presents Mavis’s breakup not as an endpoint, but as a catalyst that sends her forward.