Just days after it was announced that Jeremiah Brent will replace Bobby Berk in Queer Eye, an explosive report from Rolling Stone alleges that there were more tensions brewing behind the scenes of Berk’s amicable exit than they previously let on.
As one member of production put it, “Essentially they were a group of people put together in their mid-thirties and told to be best friends. But people don’t expect that Queer Eye could be that. That’s truly what it was: a manufactured boy band with big personalities that certain ones were favored and certain ones were not, and then eventually [things] turned really toxic.”
The report makes a number of rather shocking allegations, including that star Jonathan Van Ness (who uses they/she/he pronouns) became known for having “rage issues” that began impacting filming.
Several sources who worked with Van Ness or worked in production claimed that they were known for lashing out at crew members. RS reports one production source even claimed that Van Ness was known to “explode at least once a week.”
“[There’s] a real emotion of fear around them when they get angry. It’s almost like a cartoon where it oozes out of them,” said one source who worked with Van Ness. “It’s intense and scary.”
Van Ness quickly became the breakout star of the group, which sometimes caused tension with the rest of the Fab Five, according to one production member.
“There was absolutely tension between everybody else, especially from Jonathan Van Ness,” the source said. “He didn’t want to ever share the spotlight with anyone. There were times when we couldn’t even shoot scenes with certain members of the Fab Five together because it got so bad.”
The report claims that the Fab Five had a “cordial working relationship” by the time they filmed their final seasons together. “None of them are friends,” one source said. “They play nice.”
Sources also claimed that Berk began having issues with Van Ness and Tan France before his exit. But he was apparently still unaware that France had began campaigning for HGTV’s Brent to replace Berk — a decision which was announced just last week — using “mean girl antics.”
Berk has previously said that he decided not to renew his contract with Netflix because he was under the impression that the rest of the Fab Five were also on the fence about returning for another season. Though he recently told Vanity Fair that he has “become at peace” with their decision to continue without him, the report alleges that Berk was completely “blindsided.”
For now, Queer Eye will be returning for Season 9, which is set to film in Las Vegas. Seasons 1-8 are now streaming on Netflix.
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