Jonathan Van Ness Denies Verbal Abuse Allegations on ‘Queer Eye’ Set

More than three months after facing allegations of “demeaning” and “abusive” behavior on the set of Netflix’s Queer Eye in a Rolling Stone investigation, Jonathan Van Ness says the piece is not “really based in reality.”

Van Ness, the show’s grooming expert—who uses they/he/she pronouns—said on a recent episode of Jessie Ware’s Table Manners podcast that claims made within the article, which was published in March, were “taken out of context” and spun to “make [Van Ness] look as bad as possible.” In the exposé, multiple anonymous members of the Queer Eye production crew told Rolling Stone that Van Ness was a “monster” with “rage issues” who contributed to a “really toxic” work environment that may have led to interior decorator Bobby Berk’s exit from the Fab Five.

In January, Berk told Vanity Fair that he left the show because he was under the impression that his castmates were doing the same. Berk said he was unaware he’d be the only cast member to not renew his contract with Netflix last fall. “All the plans that I had made when I thought we weren’t coming back, I just wasn’t willing to change those,” he explained. “I would have had to pump the brakes on multiple other projects that are already in process. We had mentally just prepared ourselves to move on—that’s why I left.”

While they did not comment about Berk’s exit or the Rolling Stone article at the time, Van Ness said that they and fellow costars lifestyle coach Karamo Brown, food and wine expert Antoni Porowski, and fashion consultant Tan France were made aware in December 2023 that the magazine was working on the article. “So from January to March, I was walking on eggshells being like, ‘When is this going to happen?’ And then it finally did happen,” they said.

“That article came at an incredibly vulnerable time, like for my hair-care company, for my whole career,” Van Ness continued, referring to their company JVN Hair being sold during that same period after its parent company, Amyris, filed for bankruptcy. “My family was so supportive, and my husband and my team. But I didn’t even get on social media or look at my phone for like three weeks and anytime I tried to dip my toe in, I would immediately see something that was so intensely hurtful.”

Van Ness maintained that while Rolling Stone’s piece “was overwhelmingly untrue and done in bad faith…I know that there were times where I could have been better. But I think also being a survivor of abuse and talking about everything that I’ve talked about, I internalized it so badly. I was like, Oh my God, is it true? Like, am I really this bad person?”

The Queer Eye star, who will welcome new design lead Jeremiah Brent when the show returns for its ninth season, maintained, “I think a lot of people were looking for a reason to hate me or looking for a reason to be like, ‘See, I always knew that they were a fake cunt.’” But Van Ness said backlash from the allegations “forced me to just really learn how to slow down, disengage and then really love myself…I just had to be sad for a minute. And I just had to kind of withdraw and go into myself and feel it. And then once I got done feeling it, I was able to get the language to be able to say what I just said. It just kind of paralyzed me.”

Vanity Fair has reached out to Rolling Stone for comment.

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