Reason behind Karamo Brown’s split from Queer Eye Fab Five reportedly ‘revealed’

The reason behind Karamo Brown’s no-show at press interviews promoting the tenth and final season of Queer Eye has reportedly been revealed.

Karamo Brown, the culture expert on Netflix’s feel-good life-improvement series, was due to appear for televised press interviews on Tuesday 20 January alongside his fellow Queer Eye stars, Jonathan Van Ness, Tan France, Jeremiah Brent and Antoni Porowski. 

CBS Mornings host Gayle King alerted viewers to the fact that Brown would not be appearing, citing a statement in which he suggested he wanted to “protect” his “mental health and peace” and was “worried about being bullied” if he appeared. In an email read out in a later interview on Today, Brown’s assistant said that he had felt “mentally and emotionally abused for years,” though did not specify who by.

During an interview with The Washington Post, Brown also said it felt “great” to end Queer Eye as it meant he could live “in the best state in [his] life” and protect his mental health away from “environments and people that were trying to destroy it”. It has also surfaced that Brown no longer follows Van Ness, France and Porowski on social media.

Now, the reason behind Brown distancing himself from the Queer Eye clan has reportedly been revealed.

According to TMZ, the Queer Eye feud was reignited during filming for season 10, when Brown’s mother attended the set in Washington D.C. and was given production headphones to observe filming from nearby. 

While the cameras weren’t rolling, and with Brown out of earshot, Fab Five members Van Ness, France, and Porowski were reportedly overheard by Brown’s mother talking poorly about her son’s “lifestyle choices”.

The publication reports that Brown’s mother informed her son about what had been said about him, and tensions have been high between him and three of his fellow Queer Eye stars since.

PinkNews has contacted representatives for Karamo Brown, Tan France, Jonathan Van Ness and Antoni Porowski for comment.

It’s far from the first time that drama between the Fab Five has threatened to unmask the show’s wholesome facade.

In 2023, interior and design expert Bobby Berk left the Fab Five following on from tension between him and fashion pro, Tan France. In early 2024, a Rolling Stone investigation saw several former production members on the show claim that the behind-the-scenes relationships between the five were fractured. 

On Wednesday (21 January), Porowski attempted to celebrate the release of the show’s final season by sharing some backstage photos from his time on set on Instagram. One fan of the show chimed in to suggest that “the backstage drama kinda kills the vibe of the show” and that the “big happy family” portrayed on screen is “all fake”.

“If you can’t work out your own mess, how can you be in charge of fixing someone else’s life?” they wrote.

In response to the comment, which received over 1,000 likes, Porowski wrote: “A lot of us come from complicated families and still have jobs and positive things we’re passionate about.

“Authenticity is about being honest about the complexities of life and knowing two things can exist at the same time.”

Queer Eye season ten is streaming now on Netflix.

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