Queer Eye Cast Blindsided Live On-Air After Karamo Bails On Publicity Due To ‘Bullying’

On Wednesday, the four of Queer Eye‘s Fab Five — including Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Jeremiah Brent and Jonathan Van Ness — participated in several press appearances ahead of the show’s 10th and final season. However, Brown was absent from these interviews, with CBS Morning‘s Gayle King citing that he pulled out less than an hour before their segment was supposed to take place.

To make up for his absence, Brown shared a statement, which was read out by King, where he reminded viewers of “the main theme” he’s been trying to teach “over the past decade”.

“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,” Brown said in his statement.

When asked about their reactions to their co-star’s absence, Porowski said, “‘Surprised’ is a fair understatement”.

“Our Queer Eye family — we’ve been doing this for almost a decade, which is pretty wild to believe — and families are complicated,” Porowski continued.

“And we’re definitely not excluded from that. But I think two things can exist at the same time, and while that is definitely true, we’re also here to showcase these incredible heroes that we have and really honour the legacy of this past decade of our lives and all these wonderful heroes that we’ve had the blessing of getting to meet and to have conversations with,” Porowski said, with Brent adding that his experience on Queer Eye and with the Fab Five was “transformative”.

JVN said they were “proud” of Brown for “centring what he needs to do and taking care of himself”.

In another statement, shared with NBC’s Today with Jenna & Sheinelle, Brown’s assistant claimed that the resident culture expert “has felt mentally and emotionally abused for years”.

“He has been advised by his therapist to protect himself and his peace by not attending,” his assistant’s statement read.

Brown also provided a video message for Today with Jenna & Sheinelle, thanking fans for the support ahead of Queer Eye‘s final season.

“This new season is going to be amazing, you’re going to love every minute of it. And just like the themes of this season, I’m modelling what I believe is most important, which I want to remind you all: Love yourselves and protect yourselves. That’s why I’m here at home and not there,” Brown said.

“But continue to watch the show, the crew worked on it and did an amazing job. I want to shout out to the crew, I want to shout out to all the fans, I want to shout out to the executives from Netflix. Thank you for having me for ten seasons.”

Alongside ditching the show’s promo, Brown unfollowed all of his Queer Eye castmates on Instagram except for Brent, who joined the gang in season nine after Bobby Berk left the group in season eight.

Why did Bobby Berk leave Queer Eye?

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Berk revealed the OG Fab Five were only signed on for seven seasons. However, due to the lack of content being produced during the SAG-AFTRA strikes, Berk claimed Netflix renewed their contract.

The remaining Fab Five signed on. However, Berk didn’t, and he claimed that the others were also contemplating not signing either before agreeing to the contract.

“There were definitely emotions. But each one of us had our reasons why we did what we did. I can’t be mad—for a second I was,” he explained.

“All the plans that I had made when I thought we weren’t coming back, I just wasn’t willing to change those. I would have had to pump the brakes on multiple other projects that are already in process. We had mentally just prepared ourselves to move on—that’s why I left.”

At the time, fans speculated that a rift between him and France was the real reason behind his departure, especially since eagle-eyed viewers noticed he’d unfollowed France on social media.

In his interview with the publication, Berk confirmed he and France “had a moment” but assured fans they “will be fine”.

“Tan and I had a moment. There was a situation, and that’s between Tan and I, and it has nothing to do with the show. It was something personal that had been brewing — and nothing romantic, just to clarify that,” Berk said.

“Should I have unfollowed Tan? No.

“Maybe I should have just muted him. But that day, I was angry, and that’s the end of it. We became like siblings — and siblings are always going to fight.”

After Berk officially left the gang, Queer Eye was hit with another scandal. This time, JVN was accused of being emotionally “abusive” and having “rage issues” on the set of the hit Netflix show.

Taking to the Table Manners podcast, hosted by Jessie and Lennie Ware, JVN slammed the allegations and admitted they’d been aware of the claims in 2023.

“I went from this bankruptcy to then, ‘Oh, there’s someone who’s going to write an investigative takedown, like exposé piece about you that isn’t really based in reality, but can certainly have a lot of things taken out of context to like make you look as bad as possible,’” Van Ness said in the June 2024 episode.

JVN went on to say the claims of their problematic on-set behaviour were “untrue” and that the article was done in “bad faith”.

“There have obviously been times throughout my career where you’re stressed out, or I may have been elbow-deep in highlights and was like, ‘No, I can’t talk about that right now,’” they said.

So far, Berk hasn’t responded to the recent drama that has unfolded ahead of the show’s final season, and Brown hasn’t shared anything since pulling out from the Queer Eye publicity circuit.

The 10th and final season of Queer Eye is out now on Netflix.

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