This story originally appeared on Them.
The final season of Queer Eye may have premiered in January, but long-standing resentments and conflicts between the “Fab Five” have continued to reveal themselves. In the latest installment of beef, Tan France recently detailed a “heated argument” with a fellow castmate after the unnamed person allegedly called the fashion designer a “traitor” for not being out to family prior to the 2018 premiere of the show.
During a June 23 episode of the Dinner’s On Me podcast hosted by Modern Family star Jesse Tyler Ferguson, France spoke about the difficult process of coming out to his family, and the lack of support he said he received from another Queer Eye star.
“I've never said this before, and I won’t say who it was, but during filming of that first season, somebody on the cast was quite frustrated with me when they found out that I wasn’t out to my family,” France told Ferguson.
When he spoke about the difficulties he was having with navigating coming out to his family with another member of the Fab Five, France said that they did not understand the nuances of his experience.
“You’re kind of a traitor to us on the show if you’re not out.’ Like, ‘How can you be on Queer Eye and not be singing it from the rooftops?’” France said. “We got into a heated argument, and I was saying, ‘You have no idea what my experience is as a queer Muslim, a queer brown person, a queer immigrant. It’s all well and good you're saying this, but you will never understand what it’s like as a person of color trying to come out when you've had nobody ever say those words in your community before.”
France told Ferguson that his relationship with his family is now “so close again,” that they’re a “huge part” of his life, and that they love his husband Rob France and children, but also shared that it took time for them to come around. He told Ferguson that in 2018, when he realized the Queer Eye revival was going to be a global phenomenon rather than just a U.S. show with a cult queer following, France worried his U.K.-based family would find out and even went so far as to avoid U.K. press junkets about the show. Once he accepted there would be no stopping the show’s predicted reach, Tan realized he had to come out to his family and did so two days before the premiere.
“My mom had never heard the word ‘gay.’ She never heard the notion of somebody being queer,” he said. “She watches brown TV. It's a network in the U.K. called ZTV. It just shows South Asian programming day and night. So she doesn't watch Western television. So they don’t show anything. There’s never even been a queer storyline.”
Though his family didn’t have experience with queer people, and had questions for France, Queer Eye’s impact on LGBTQ+ representation broadly helped them accept him.
“‘Oh, you’re not the devil just because you’re gay,’” France said his family told him. “You’re actually doing something really nice. Absolutely, you can stay.’”
France’s anecdote is just the latest in the long list of controversies that have shrouded the end of the show. In January, during a press tour by the Fab Five in honor of the last season of the show, life coach Karamo Brown skipped joint interviews with his castmates out of fear of “being bullied,” later specifying that the toxic culture of the show emotionally exhausted him.
In 2024, Rolling Stone reported that multiple production sources alleged that former cast member and interior designer Bobby Berk left Queer Eye, in part, because of the dynamics between the Fab Five. Even after the show’s conclusion, the dramatic behind-the-scenes lore of Queer Eye continues to reverberate.
