There's something going on with the cast of Queer Eye... again.

The cast of Queer Eye are no strangers to controversy.

From Bobby Berk's contentious departure to cast members mysteriously unfollowing each other on social media, conversations about fractures between the show's "Fab Five" — Berk, Tan France, Karamo Brown, Jonathan Van Ness and Antoni Porowski — have been flaring on-and-off for years.

And now, ahead of the show's tenth and final season, tensions are, once again, boiling over.

Brown has abruptly pulled out of the final season's press tour in order to protect his mental health, citing fears of bullying.

By who? That remains unclear.

But it has certainly sent fans into a tizzy.

Watch: the Queer Eye season ten official trailer. Post continues below video.

Everything we know about the 'bullying' allegations.

Fans — and the cast of Queer Eye too, it seems — were taken aback when Brown shared he would not be participating in several interviews for the upcoming season.

It all started when Karamo abruptly pulled out of a scheduled CBS Mornings interview "less than an hour" before filming.

Host Gayle King broke the news to viewers via a statement from Brown that explained his absence: he had chosen to stay away out of a fear of "being bullied."

"I hope everyone remembers the main theme I have tried to teach them over the past decade, which is to focus on and to protect their mental health/peace from people or a world who seek to destroy it; which is why I can't be there today," he wrote in a statement.

The 10th and final season of “Queer Eye” was emotional for Tan France, Jonathan Van Ness, Antoni Porowski and Jeremiah Brent, who say the series “had massive effects” on how they see themselves and relate to others.

The experts share what they hope viewers take away from the… pic.twitter.com/PiRmQQtL2c

— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) January 20, 2026

His co-stars were apparently just as surprised as we were.

"Surprised is a fair understatement. I will say, our Queer Eye family, we've been doing this for almost a decade — which is pretty wild to believe — and families are complicated, and we're definitely not excluded from that," Porowski said in response to Brown's absence.

In the same interview, JVN offered some words of support for Brown for taking care of himself.

"He has taught people to centre what they need. And I'm actually really proud of him. Centre what you need, do the things that you need to do to take care of you. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like that sometimes," they said.

"It's really beautiful. We do need to centre what's best for us sometimes. And I take my hat off to him for doing that today."

While the details regarding the bullying allegations remain unclear, this drama comes just a week after Brown unfollowed several of the cast, including Porowski, Van Ness and France.

Bobby Berk was fired because of Tan France and Antoni Porowski.

Following Berk's announcement that he was leaving the show in 2023, rumours about an alleged falling out with France started swirling.

The whispers were sparked, in no small part, by the fact Berk seemingly unfollowed France on Instagram.

"I want people to know that Tan and I — we will be fine," Berk said in a January interview with Vanity Fair, acknowledging the alleged fallout without giving a reason as to why.

"There was a situation, and that's between Tan and I, and it has nothing to do with the show. It was something personal that had been brewing — and nothing romantic, just to clarify that."

Rolling Stone may have uncovered the reason.

Berk had told Vanity Fair he was under the impression the entire group were planning to end the series at about season eight. There was even a tearful goodbye at the end of season eight's filming.

"We thought we were done," he said. "Mentally and emotionally, I thought we all moved on. I know I did, and I started planning other things."

But then, Netflix renewed the series for a ninth season to fill a gap left by the 2023 SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. Berk said he was surprised to learn that the other four had agreed to return.

Three Rolling Stone sources alleged that unbeknownst to Berk, France — with alleged help from Porowski — campaigned to replace Berk with their friend and interior designer Jeremiah Brent.

One source called it "mean girl antics."

Brent was officially announced as Berk's replacement for season nine.

However, in March, France uploaded a video to his Instagram, denying the rumours he had anything to do with Berk's departure.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by T A N . F R A N C E (@tanfrance)

"My former colleague getting fired had nothing to do with me trying to get my friend hired," France said. "I didn't get [Brent] hired by getting rid of somebody else."

The sources speculated that the four returning cast members signed back on in order to keep themselves in the zeitgeist, despite spluttering personal brands and businesses.

"Of course, they're all still doing it to maintain popular culture relevance. They're all basically influencers for their own brand," one source said.

JVN accused of "rage issues."

Rolling Stone spoke to seven sources who described Jonathan Van Ness, the show's joyous grooming expert, as a "monster", "nightmare" and "demeaning."

All seven said Van Ness, who uses he/she/they pronouns, would lash out at people they worked closely with. Three described Van Ness as having "rage issues" and being" emotionally abusive."

One Queer Eye source estimated Van Ness would blow up at least once a week and was a "yeller."

"Jonathan's a person who contains multitudes and who has the capacity to be very warm, very charismatic, and has the capacity to make you feel really special that they are paying attention to you," one source said.

"But at least once a day, they would need to yell at somebody. It might be something small, but there's always going to be somebody to point out and blame and make the villain of the day."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jonathan Van Ness (@jvn)

This behaviour reportedly caused tensions within the Fab Five, with certain members, including Berk, becoming reluctant to shoot scenes with Van Ness.

One production member claimed Van Ness "didn't want to share the spotlight."

"There were times when we couldn’t even shoot scenes with certain members of the Fab Five together because it got so bad," they said.

Netflix executives reportedly held at least one meeting with Van Ness about this behaviour, but little changed.

In June, Van Ness addressed the allegations directly, calling the Vanity Fair article "overwhelmingly untrue and done in bad faith."

"There was this article that was written about Queer Eye and myself in March, but our whole Queer Eye family had first learned about this article in like December," Van Ness said.

"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 went on to acknowledge that, while "there were times where I could have been better", the majority of what was revealed in the article was "taken out of context."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jonathan Van Ness (@jvn)

The cast were competitive about screen time.

Queer Eye fans will be very familiar with the joke that Berk did much more work than the rest of the group, but got little thanks for it.

Often, the episodes would routinely cut scenes with Berk, according to four sources. Instead, he would only reappear at the end of episodes to reveal the home makeovers and watch the grand reveal with his cast mates.

For a long time, Berk leaned into the bit.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bobby Berk (@bobby)

But it did take a toll.

"I know Bobby did feel a bit less in the running [of being the fan favourite] because you didn't see him that much in episodes," one source said.

The Fab Five were not friends outside of work.

Despite the warm group environment portrayed in the series, the Fab Five were mostly just co-workers.

Rolling Stone sources said only France and Porowski were friends outside of filming.

"Their relationships have definitely changed since Season One," a production source said. "As in all workplaces, as time moves on, people become closer with some people and move further away from others."

Another source was more blunt: "None of them are friends. They play nice."

In September 2023, during an interview with Andy Cohen, Brown revealed that he, along with other members of the Fab Five, were not invited to Porowski's bachelor party, further fuelling the rumours that the group was not, in fact, close at all.

"Bobby was not invited, I was not invited, and Jonathan was not invited. Just Tan was invited. The shade," he said.

Following Berk's departure announcement, the only member of the Fab Five who made an individual post about him was Brown. But I mean, are we really that surprised that he didn't get along with the others?

"I love YOU with all my heart. I wouldn't have made it this long without you there with me," Brown wrote.

Queer Eye season nine, which will be set in Las Vegas, is returning this week and will be the first time we see the new home expert, Jeremiah Brent.

Feature image: Netflix.

This article was originally published in April 2024 and has since been updated with new information.

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