Alleged Reason for ‘Queer Eye’ Cast Beef Leaks Out

Fans of Queer Eye were shocked this week when co-host Karamo Brown backed out of the press tour, claiming he felt “mentally and emotionally abused” by his castmates.

A new report from TMZ seems to have the answers on what caused the rift between Brown and his former Netflix co-stars.

The report claims that Brown and his four co-hosts—Jonathan Van Ness, Tan France, Antoni Porowski, and Jeremiah Brent—were filming the upcoming tenth and final season last summer in Washington, D.C. when Brown learned some of his castmates were talking behind his back.

Allegedly, Brown invited his mom on set one day for filming. She was given production headphones by the show’s staff and watched from afar as the show filmed its final episodes. Porowski, France, and Van Ness were caught on a hot mic trashing Brown for his lifestyle choices, the report says, and Brown’s mother heard it and immediately reported it to her son.

Since then, Brown has unfollowed the three on Instagram, with Jeremiah Brent being the only Queer Eye cast member he still follows.

When the show’s cast members appeared on TODAY this past Tuesday, the show’s host Sheinelle Jones read an email from Brown’s assistant that read, “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.”

His co-stars were shocked.

“Surprised is a fair understatement,” Porowski said on TODAY. “I will say our Queer Eye family, we’ve been doing this for almost a decade, which is pretty wild to believe, and families are complicated. And we’re definitely not excluded from that.” 

The tenth and final season of Queer Eye begins streaming on Netflix on Wednesday, Jan. 21.