Before Queer Eye, Jonathan Van Ness was addicted to meth. It nearly killed them.

You know Jonathan Van Ness (or JVN) as the high-energy, hair-flipping heart of Queer Eye who taught us that self-care isn't selfish.

But while Van Ness radiates joy now as they prepare to head to Australia for their Hot & Healed tour, their path to get here was anything but fabulous.

Behind the gymnastics obsession and the glitter, Van Ness was navigating childhood trauma, a spiralling struggle with drug and sex addiction and a life-altering HIV diagnosis.

First, listen to Jonathan Van Ness's chat on Mamamia's No Filter. Post continues below.

Much of Van Ness's life has been shaped by the trauma of being sexually abused as a child.

In their memoir Over the Top, the Queer Eye star opened up about the "nauseating excitement" and shame that clung to them for years — eventually leading to a destructive cycle of binge-eating and drug use to cope.

By 19, Van Ness had flunked out of college and was battling a cocaine habit. The silence and isolation surrounding their abuse only caused them to struggle more.

After moving home, Van Ness turned to cosmetology and enrolled in an 11-month program at the Aveda Institute in Minneapolis to become a hairstylist.

In 2009, they moved to Los Angeles in 2009 — a decision that would lay the foundation for a very bright future.

But Van Ness's drug and sex addiction only worsened.

Watch the trailer for season 10 of Queer Eye. Post continues below.

By their early 20s, they were introduced to methamphetamine. While it was never a daily habit, it wasn't long before they became addicted.

"A lot of people that have meth addiction are engaged in that kind of like chem-sex, queer culture," they told Mamamia's No Filter.

It was "everywhere" they looked.

In the midst of this, Van Ness's stepfather, Steve, was diagnosed with bladder cancer and told he had 11 months to live. His death in 2012 rocked Van Ness.

"I definitely never saw myself as someone who would ever do meth," they told NPR in 2019.

"Watching my stepdad lose his battle to cancer and dying in our living room in hospice care at 25 years old, that f****d me right on up."

One encounter was enough to ruin them. They had two stints in rehab and relapsed both times.

"Once you dip your toe in, it's really it. They're not kidding when they say, 'If you do it once, you will be addicted'," Van Ness told Mamamia.

"I literally did it once. And then it took me a few years to get to a place where I could never do it again."

Image: Supplied.

The wake-up call.

The circuit breaker came that same year, when Van Ness fainted in a salon while doing a client's hair.

A trip to Planned Parenthood the next day confirmed the then-25-year-old's fears: they were HIV positive.

While the news was devastating, Van Ness now sees it as the moment they hit rock bottom.

"I think that contracting HIV saved me, because that was the wake-up call that got me to get away from meth," they said.

"If I hadn't gotten HIV, I would have just kept relapsing, and at one point, one of those would have killed me."

Image: Instagram/jvn.

Van Ness believes their HIV diagnosis helped them become socially conscious.

As the success of Queer Eye grew, they realised their platform was a tool that could help others, and in 2019, publicly shared their HIV diagnosis.

"I saw the continued systematic attack on Planned Parenthood and just the continued really bad policy coming out of this administration around people living with HIV… I felt like it was really important for me to talk about it," they told KCRW's Press Play with Madeleine Brand that year.

But being a public "beacon" of hope isn't without its costs. Sharing the truth of their trauma in their 2019 memoir was more taxing than they anticipated.

"I was really strong and brave in writing it, and it took so much for me to write it, and then once it came out, and once I did the press for it, I was like, 'Oh my god. That felt like putting my soul in a blender and then like eating it every day'," they told Mamamia.

Through years of therapy and EMDR, they've finally reached a point where they can "talk about a situation without becoming the situation."

Image: Instagram/jvn.

Part of that healing has been finding the language to describe a feeling they've had their entire life. While they grew up as a "femme boy" in a town that didn't have a category for them, it wasn't until they met author and performer Alok Vaid-Menon that the lightbulb finally went off.

"It showed me a possibility model that mirrored how I've already felt my whole life," they told Mamamia.

Today, they identify as non-binary, describing their gender expression as a fluid space where some days feel more masculine and others more feminine.

Ultimately, the JVN we see today is a version of Van Ness that is finally comfortable in their own skin, even if the "healing" part never truly ends.

As the iconic Euphoria line goes, "Maddy knew who she was from a young age." For JVN, they've always known they're hot; it's the "healed" part that required the work.

"I've always been healing. I wouldn't say I'm healed. It's part of what the set's about is that it's really a journey, not a destination," they said.

When they look toward the future — specifically, their 80-year-old self — they aren't focused on the fame, or the hair. They're focused on a Golden Girls fantasy, with a few JVN upgrades.

"I want to be a blend of Dorothy, Blanche and Rose," they laughed. "I want to be needle-pointing, having more pets... and my husband, Mark, has to be there. Just us and some fun friends eating cheesecake."

JVN's Hot & Healed Tour is coming to Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Darwin later this year. To find out more, click here.

Feature image: Instagram/jvn.