TV Personality Karamo Brown Reveals What Really Went Down & ‘Broke’ The Fab Five After Skipping Out On Press For “Queer Eye” Final Season

Karamo Brown

Karamo Brown Reveals What Really Went Down & ‘Broke’ The Fab Five After Skipping Out On Press For “Queer Eye” Final Season

#KaramoBrown is finally speaking out.

Months ago, Karamo shocked fans when he announced at the last minute that he would not be joining his #QueerEye costars — Antoni Porowski, Jonathan Van Ness, Tan France, and Jeremiah Brent — for press to promote the show’s tenth and final season. Now, in a new interview with PEOPLE, he’s addressing the years of alleged behind-the-scenes tension within the Fab Five. Karamo claims the toxicity he experienced was made worse by bullying and unchecked bad behavior from executives and production staff. “Everyone would just say, ‘Well, that’s just that person,’ instead of saying, ‘This behavior does not fly in a professional environment,’” he said.
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The breaking point came when his mother visited the set and overheard costars speaking negatively about him. “The thing I know is the tears I saw in my mother’s eyes,” he recalled. “[She kept repeating], ‘I thought they were your friends.’” Karamo traces the group’s fracture to the show’s earliest days, when a s3xual harassment complaint was filed against him just weeks into filming.
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He maintains he was cleared and that an anonymous third party was responsible — but the damage was already done. “It broke us,” he said. “We all knew the divide between us.” He also revealed he relapsed during the third season after 12 years of sobriety. Now in a better headspace, Karamo recently launched a wellness app and is hopeful the #FabFive can find their way to forgiveness. “I think we all deserve a bit of grace for how we handled ourselves and one another. We were just doing our best.”