Jonathan Van Ness Addresses ‘Queer Eye’ Drama Allegations: “A Lot Of People Were Looking For A Reason To Hate Me”
Queer Eye star Jonathan van Ness is opening up about an exposé alleging he created a toxic work environment on Netflix’s makeover series.
Earlier this year, Rolling Stone published an investigation that cited different sources that worked with Van Ness. The report stated that the grooming expert was emotionally “abusive,” was called a “monster,” and alleged that he had “rage issues.”
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“Our whole Queer Eye family had first learned about this article in December,” Van Ness said on the latest episode of the Table Manners podcast. “I heard… ‘There’s someone who’s gonna write an investigative takedown/exposé piece about you that isn’t really based in reality, but can certainly have a lot of things taken out of context to make you look as bad as possible. So that could drop any day now. Just so you know.'”
Van Ness said that he had been “walking on eggshells” until the report was published in March 2024, adding, “I think a lot of people were like looking for a reason to hate me or like looking for a reason to be like, ‘See, I always knew that they were a fake c**t and this is the proof. My family was so supportive of my husband and my team, but I didn’t even get on social media, like look at my phone for three weeks.”
The Netflix star continued, “I think people forget no matter how famous you are you’re still a person. That article came at like an incredibly vulnerable time, like for my hair care company, for like my whole career. It just was really rough.”
Queer Eye‘s cast also includes Antoni Porowski, Karamo Brown, and Tan France. Bobby Berk left the series and Jeremiah Brent took over his role.
“Even though I do believe that that article was overwhelmingly untrue and done in bad faith there have obviously been times through my career where you’re like stressed out,” Van Ness said. “Or like I may have been like elbow deep in highlights and was like, ‘No, I can’t talk about that right now.’ I know that there was times where I like could have been better.”
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