Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Getty Images
The tenth and final season of Queer Eye dropped on Netflix today, with the gang taking to Washington, D.C., to reshape the lives of Justice Department employees with bad haircuts and low self-esteem. While this should be a celebratory and reflective time for the Queer Eye cast, their press tour was disrupted by drama on Tuesday when Karamo Brown (the culture expert) pulled out of two morning-show appearances at the last minute to the surprise of his castmates.
“As you see, we call it Fab Five, but one of the Fab Five is not here,” Gayle King said during the Fab Five Four’s CBS Mornings appearance. “We received word less than an hour ago that Karamo Brown is not going to be joining us.” While Brown was not there in the physical sense, his assistant sent over a statement for King to read while his fellow cast members all held hands.
“I hope everyone remembers the main theme I have tried to teach them over the past decade, which is to focus on and to protect their mental health/peace from people or a world who seek to destroy it, which is why I can’t be there today,” the statement read. King added that Brown’s assistant said he was “worried about being bullied.”
Antoni Porowski, Queer Eye’s cooking guy, told King that saying they were surprised by Brown’s absence would be an “understatement” but added that their group dynamic is not immune to difficulties. “Families are complicated, and we’re definitely not excluded from that,” Porowski said, before deftly navigating the conversation back to “honoring the legacy of this past decade of our lives and all these wonderful heroes that we’ve had the blessing of getting to meet.”
Jeremiah Brent, the interior designer who replaced Bobby Berk after his own abrupt and messy departure from the squad, added that his experience with the cast has been “transformative.” “I feel safe and supported by the people up here,” he said. Kind of feels like the new guy shouldn’t get to weigh in, but sure.
King then asked if any of them had anything to say to Brown, which Jonathan Van Ness tackled. “I would say that one thing I have been so honored to learn from Karamo in my time is, just like he said in that package, we have to meet people where they’re at,” Van Ness said. “He has taught people to center what they need, and I’m actually really proud of him. Center what you need; do the things you need to do to take care of you.”
After an outfit change, the gang headed over to Today, where they were interviewed by Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones. They were, once again, all holding hands when Jones read a different statement from Brown’s assistant: “Karamo has felt mentally and emotionally abused for years and he has been advised by his therapist to protect himself and his peace by not attending.”
Brown also sent a video message to the show, in which he said he was “modeling what I believe is most important,” which is to “love yourself and protect yourself,” hence why he was at home instead of with his cast. Brown relayed all of this with a lot of energy and a huge smile before Today cut back to the somber vibe in the studio.
Porowski once again took the lead on addressing the situation, saying that as a collective they “fully support” Brown “taking care of himself.” Tan France added his own two cents, saying, “I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved, including Karamo. What we’ve all done together, the work that he has done and the rest of us, has been profound.”
Would a bully say that? I look forward to hearing more from Brown to better understand why he left the group. In the meantime, I think that, like France, we can all be proud of what has been achieved here: some really good drama.
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