Karamo Brown says none of Queer Eye cast identify as queer
The culture expert also spoke on fatherhood in the same interview
By Steve Brown
Karamo Brown has said none of the Queer Eye castmates identify as “queer”.
The 37-year-old hunk stars as the culture expert in the Netflix reboot of the popular TV series – alongside Bobby Berk, Atoni Porowski, Tan France and Jonathan Van Ness – and in a recent interview, he revealed that he identifies as a “gay man” rather than “queer”.
While speaking to Marc Malkin on Facebook Live, he said: “I don’t [describe myself as queer]. I describe myself as gay – I come from an old school where gay used to be a negative.
“It’s not negative anymore to me. Through the years, I understand the reclaiming the power with it, but queer is more an umbrella that encompasses so many other people and for me, I identify as a gay man.
“I have a lot of friends who identify as queer. I don’t know if any of the guys on [Queer Eye] identify as gay.
“None of us identify as queer. I don’t know about Jonathan. We never asked if Jonathan identifies as queer.
“I know that me, Bobby and Tan identify as gay men. Atoni identifies as a gay man… I don’t know what Jonathan identifies as. I would assume gay but I don’t know.”
In the same interview, he revealed that his son Jason – who he found out about when he was 25 – could follow in his footsteps and star in Real World: Philadelphia, the show which kickstarted Karamo’s career.
He said: “I thought he was joking… but he showed me the application. He literally applied and sent his application off.
“His mother is the last girl I dated when I was in high school. She got pregnant and moved away and I found out about him when I was 25.
“His mum’s sister when [I was on Real World], said to him, ‘That’s your father’, which made him watch the show to watch me.
“He put it in the application that ‘not only does this mean a lot to me because my dad was on it, but the first time I even saw my dad was when he was on The Real World’.”
Karamo also adopted Jason’s half brother Chris in 2010.