Queer Eye’s last-season drama

Earlier this week, Queer Eye star Karamo Brown was notably absent from several press appearances in the morning show circuit that had been lined up for the cast to help promote the tenth and final season of the show. In a statement shared by his assistant, Karamo attributed his eleventh-hour failure to appear to ‘years’ of mental and emotional abuse from his cast mates: 

"Karamo has felt mentally and emotionally abused for years and he's been advised by his therapist to protect himself and his peace by not attending."

Though he didn’t provide any specific names of colleagues in his statement, it eventually became clear who his beef was with, because hours after that bombshell he unfollowed all of his castmates except Jeremiah Brent, who only joined the cast in season nine, taking the place of former Queer Eye star Bobby Berk.

Though Karamo wasn’t there in the flesh on sets of shows like CBS Mornings and TODAY, he did appear in a video message that TODAY show host Sheinelle shared on screen. In the video, he had this to say:

"Just like the themes of the season, I am modeling 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."

It took me two watches of his video to realize just how much shade we’re dealing with here. At first it appeared that he just wanted to give his well wishes, say his final goodbye and ensure fans they would enjoy the latest season. But he deliberately congratulated everyone except his castmates. He even congratulated Jenna and Sheinelle for being cemented as the new duo of the TODAY show. He thanked and congratulated the Queer Eye crew, but paid absolute dust to his castmates. And that’s pretty telling. So what happened?

According to TMZ, the reason for Karamo’s failure to show stems from an incident that happened during the filming of season 10. Karamo had invited his mom to the set of the show while they were filming in Washington, D.C. She had been given a pair of production headphones and was watching the group film when Karamo had stepped away from his co-stars momentarily. In his absence, the other men allegedly began speaking poorly about Karamo and criticizing him while their mics were hot. And while the specifics are scarce, whatever was said was bad enough that upon it getting back to him via his mom, it created an ‘immediate rift’ within the group.

In terms of the reactions from the rest of the cast, Antoni Porowski had this to say to CBS Mornings:

“Surprised is a fair understatement. …But I think two things can exist at the same time. We’re also here to showcase these incredible heroes we have and really honor 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 have conversations with.”

Meanwhile, Jonathan Van Ness congratulated Karamo for doing what he felt he needed to:

"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 take care of you. I'd be lying if I didn't feel like that sometimes. And so, I think it's really beautiful, and I think we do need to center what is best for us sometimes and my hat off to him for doing that today."

Jeremiah Brent, on the other hand, says his experience has been completely different to Karamo’s, saying:

"I have felt safe and supported by the people up here. I have loved every second of this thing and I'm so excited that we get to do this and share this next season because the show really is just about highlighting the best of humanity."

And then there’s Tan France, the cast member who seems to elicit the most curiosity as it pertains to this whole situation. He had fairly positive things to say about the experience, and nothing too much about Karamo’s absence.

Naturally, people want to know where Tan, a British-Pakistani Muslim gay man (who also calls the heavily Mormon city of Salt Lake City, Utah, home) falls in all of this. There seems to be the idea that if one cast member was experiencing some form of bullying or being on the outs, he might be able to empathize given how he identifies and also given his lived experience.

Last year around this time, Tan spoke openly about his reasons for relocating to the U.S. from the U.K. During Sundance Film Festival’s Sunrise Collective panel, he shared that his experience and the treatment he received due to his ethnicity was not something that motivated him to stay in the U.K. He also recalled being referred to as different racial slurs.

Tan said he admitted that he initially thought his fame from Queer Eye might change the racist experiences he was having. But one day, during a visit with his mom where he took her for a bus ride for nostalgia’s sake, he was called a slur and snapped right back into the reality of racism. This, he said, was the final straw that made him move to the U.S.

What’s interesting about what Tan shared is what it reveals about the delusion and misunderstanding that can exist - for racialized people - about what racism really is and how it operates. To me, anyone who thinks fame will change the level of racism they might experience in any setting doesn’t fully grasp that racism permeates status. It’s why some of the world’s biggest celebrities, the world’s biggest athletes and the world’s greatest politicians still experience racism. I also take what Tan said to mean that he is someone who equates fame and proximity to whiteness as something that might bring him closer to ‘being’ or embodying whiteness. But that’s just not how it works.

This highlights a longstanding issue – which is marginalization within marginalization. It’s unfortunate that sometimes the biggest perpetrators of racism are not actually the people opposite of our race, but the people adjacent to it. And when you think about why, a lot of it stems from the fact that it keeps the target off of their backs.

But a lot of times this has to do with triangulation from the other perpetrators. They need people like Tan on their side so they can point to the fact that Tan’s experience with the show was positive, which would discredit some of Karamo’s claims. None of this is to say that the treatment Karamo says he experienced was at the hands of Tan, but as an outsider looking in, these are often some of the nuances at play in a situation like this.

Overall, there’s been peaks and valleys with this cast. In 2023, Karamo appeared in a SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live episode, and revealed that he, former star Bobby Berk and Jonathan Van Ness were not invited to Antoni’s bachelor party. Tan France was, though. Andy told Karamo that in a separate interview with Bobby, it came across more like the trio couldn’t make it, but Tan could, but Karamo cleared that right up and let Andy know that they could have made it, they just weren’t invited.

And Queer Eye is ultimately a reality show that ran for a decade, things like this are bound to happen. I mean, this is the exact kind of sh-t that happens in the TV world all the time. Just this week, Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Britani Bateman asserted that she would never film with Meredith Marks again over bombshells from the reunion. But if she wants to make money, she’s going to have to film with Meredith. We also saw this on Vanderpump Rules when Ariana refused to be in the same room as her ex Tom Sandoval after he cheated on her with one of her closest friends, Rachel. It created so much tension that the show wound down operations and relaunched with an entirely new cast.

But on Queer Eye, with this being the tenth and final season, what is Karamo hoping to accomplish by taking this stand? Is this the bang he wanted to go out with? The legacy he wanted to leave? Maybe not. But at the same time, he’s practicing what he preaches on the show and doing what he feels he needs to. All of this suggests that whatever he is going through is affecting him deeply and this was the only choice he had. The other interesting thing is that Karamo hasn’t said outright that any of this was racially motivated. But as the only Black person on the show, does he have to?

Back in 2018, the Fab Five got pulled over and Karamo was driving. He was asked for his license, he didn’t have it. He was asked to step out of the car, and a tense interaction followed before the officer finally revealed it was just a prank. Not even in 2018 was playing this kind of joke with a Black man as the driver okay.

So I think the stand we saw Karamo take this week wasn’t for nothing. It wasn’t just for what happened when they were filming in Washington. It was for all the little and big moments that he dealt with throughout the years, despite being part of the ‘family’, as Antoni and other toxic leaders in workplaces everywhere insist. And if that’s the case, I admire that. Because in workplaces everywhere, Black and other marginalized people are expected to sit down, bite their tongues and not defend themselves or even bring to light some of the crap we deal with on a daily basis. And he reminded us that sometimes, you have to make noise.