spotlight


about testing with one person from each category in the room and rotating them out to see who had the best connections. They brought me in the beginning, rotated me out, then put me back in and I didn’t leave for the rest of the day. Karamo, Tan and I were there pretty much the whole time and then Antoni and Jonathan. By the end of the day around eight or nine o’clock, we took a break and saw that there was nobody left—just the five of us—it was pretty exciting. They had us do kind of a faux episode that same


night and said, “We’re going to bring you over to a house and want you to act like you’re doing a real episode. Just rip the place apart! I got there and real- ize it’s actually Executive Producer Michael Williams’s home, the creator of the show and I’m thinking, “You want me to rip apart the house of somebody, who is hopefully about to be my boss?” (Laughs) None of the other guys realized whose place it was, but I saw the Emmy sitting on his counter! Too funny. How much about the premise did you know? I ask, because relocating to Atlanta from New York really changed the tenor of the show and made it more accessible. We knew it was going to be in Atlanta because


Carson Kressley spilled the beans on national television. (Laughs) That’s actually how Karamo found out about it. Carson slipped onWatch What Happens LIVE, with Andy Cohen andEntertainment Weekly picked it up. They ended up getting a quote from the producers that basically said, “They wanted to paint the red states pink.” I figured, living in L.A., knowing how much filming goes on in Atlanta, that’s where it would be shooting. We didn’t know going into it though, that the show


would be so much different from the original. We were actually in the beginning kind of pressured to follow the original format. To be exactly the same: go in and rip the people and tear apart where they live and point out everything that’s a mess about them, that’s kind of what was expected. It wasn’t so much that they told us what to do, it was more like, “This is the show and it’s a successful format, that’s where the bar was set, so let’s do it again.” It’s pretty amazing that producers listened to you and were flexible enough to recognize that the premise needed to evolve. Yes. We all kind of took a step back and talked


about how that just wasn’t us. We didn’t want to tear anyone down and were so tired of all the negativity on television and in the news. We wanted to build people up and point out all the great things about them and help with their self-esteem. After we finished episode


one, the love and affection that we showered on Tom really turned this guy around and it was in only four days. It really blew our mind and we all decided that this was basically our magic formula. Part of what I love about the show is that it’s all about helping people discover what comfort and home is all about. How it’s something you can work on from the outside, but lasting change is all about working from the inside out. How much information do you have about the people on the show, do you get to prescreen them? No. When you see us meet them for the first time,


we are really, truly meeting them for the first time. We have nothing to do with casting, so that our “Heroes” experience is sincere. We want them to forget they’re on television and that we’re just five guys who are trying to help them out. Our producers, of course, find out things about their lives to know if there is something there. But as far as the Fab Five, we meet them when you see us meet them. Have you been surprised by how vulnerable people on the show have been willing to be? Every single time. (Laughs) Though there have


been a few that we’ve met that were no surprise, like Miss Tammye, who was so open and loving from the very beginning. The moment I met her I was like “She’s going to be amazing.” There have been some like William Mahnken’s proposal episode when I thought “This is going to be a long week of shooting.” He just didn’t talk and was very shy, but in the end his episode ended up being one of the best. Part of the magic ofQueer Eye is that each of you have interesting backstories and you’re willing to share them. It engenders trust: if you want someone to be vulnerable with you, you invite that by being vulnerable first. I definitely didn’t go into the show expecting to


share so much about my personal life. I had told producers in the beginning, “I’ll talk about anything, just don’t ask me to go into a church or talk about religion.” Of course, that’s what’s happened with the Tammye episode and I’m really glad in the end that


it did. It definitely changed me and the DMs I get on a daily basis about that episode, really made me realize what an impact thatQueer Eye could have. I had a priest message me saying that his whole


life he was taught that being gay was evil and that it was a choice. That gays were deplorable and an abomination and that all you had to do was “Pray the gay away” and taught that in his church. That gays were pedophiles and that it was their fault for not changing and they needed to repent. He told me that after watching the Tammye episode, for the first time he truly understood that it wasn’t a choice. He said it changed him and he would never teach such things in his church again. To know little gay kids in his church won’t grow up with that message of self-loathing makes it all worth it. It’s why we do what we do, to have conversations like this. The fact that you are able to do it on national television is mind-boggling to me. The world has changed for sure. It really has, even in the time from when I was a


teenager hiding in Barnes and Noble reading an XY Magazine, that was the only outlet I had as a gay kid.Queer Eye is international now, we’re in 190 countries now and when you think about the fact that there’s only 195 in the world. It’s amazing that these messages are reaching a worldwide audience: Muslim countries, very Catholic countries and places like that. It may have changed here in the U.S. but there are a lot of places that haven’t and so to be able to touch people’s lives and maybe help affect change in other countries that need it, that’s very cool.


For more of this interview, go to ragemonthly.com.


For more information on Bobby Berk’s work or to view and shop his designs go to bobbyberk.design.


Catch Bobby Berk and the rest of the Fab Five: Tan France, Karamo Brown, Antoni Porowski and Jonathan Van Ness on Neflix’sQueer Eye at netflix.com.


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RAGE monthly | SEPTEMBER 2018


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