‘Dancing With the Stars’: Karamo Brown Shares Pride in ‘Queer Eye’ Co-Star Jonathan Van Ness Over HIV Revelation

Karamo Brown is showing his love and support for fellow Queer Eye co-star Jonathan Van Ness after he came forward about being HIV-positive. The Dancing With the Stars contestant was at Save the Children’s “Centennial Celebration: Once in a Lifetime” where he opened up to ET about being proud of Ness for having the courage to open up about his truth in hopes of making others who live with HIV more comfortable.

“I can’t speak on his decision to go public with it, I’m just proud of the fact that he has,” he told the outlet. “… His visibility is helping so many other people to feel comfortable in who they are.”

Brown said while this may be news to the public, it’s not to the rest of their cast members: Bobby Berk, Tan France and Antoni Porowski.

“The five of us are very close and we talked about it many times, a long time before, and we’ve always been supportive. For me, I used to have an HIV/AIDS organization to end stigma and so he was very comfortable in talking about it.”

He went on to say that HIV doesn’t just affect the LGBT community, it affects plenty more as well.

“It’s something that we have to talk about because it doesn’t just affect the LGBT community, it affects African Americans, it affects all of us, it affects kids,” he added. “The more we talk about it, the more people will get help, get treatment.”

Brown is busy these days showing off his charismatic dance moves on the hit ABC show. The reality star is paired with Jenna Johnson and so far has done a fabulous job earning high scores from the judges. He even gushes over one celebrity in particular who was cheering him on from the sideline.

“I’m having a great time,” he said of DWTS. “I’m somebody who loves costumes, I like it all. And the fact that each week there’s also, like, tons of celebrities in there… literally two nights ago Demi Lovato was like, ‘I’m in love with you.’ And I’m just like, ‘Demi Lovato, what? Are you kidding me?’”

“It’s just kind of an honor to have people that I’ve looked up to for so long constantly tell me how much they look up to me and admire me,” he added.

While he seems to be enjoying himself, he did admit it’s a little harder to compete than what he anticipated — something several celebrities over the years have confessed to. He mentioned that a few of the famous faces on the show have had more experience than some, which is a factor that feels a bit “unfair” to him.

“Just having rhythm is not enough,” he confessed. “Because I thought I could slide through having rhythm, having style, but it’s, like, hard. There’s a couple people who are ringers because they’ve had dancing experience. I’m not a hater, but I’m like, it seems a little bit unfair. And so I’m like, ‘Hold on. I have to work a little bit harder to keep up with these people who have been dancing since they were three years old.’”