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Bobby Berk opens up about Tan France drama & why he really left Queer Eye
“There was a situation, and that’s between Tan and I, and it has nothing to do with the show,” the Queer Eye alum said.
Bobby Berk is spilling some hot, scalding tea.
A lot of fans were shook and confused when Berk and Netflix announced that the interior design expert would leave Queer Eye following the series’ eighth season. Following the announcement, however, speculation came to the surface regarding a potential feud between certain members of the Fab Five.
Towards the end of 2023, Queer Eye fans started to notice that Berk was no longer following his costar Tan France, nor tagging him in group photos of the Fab Five.
“Tan and I had a moment,” Berk told Vanity Fairin a new interview. “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.”
He added, “Should I have unfollowed Tan? No, maybe I should have just muted him. But that day, I was angry, and that’s the end of it. We became like siblings, and siblings are always going to fight.”
According to Berk, he and France did come together at the 75th Emmy Awards after Queer Eye won the award for Outstanding Structured Reality Program. The interior designer explained:
“We both embraced each other, and we both said congratulations. And that’s where we are right now. I will always have a very special place in my heart for him, and Rob [France’s husband], and the kids. I can foresee in six months or a year, Tan and I at each other’s house being good. The Emmys was already the first bandage on that wound.”
When it comes to quitting Queer Eye, it seems like the reality described by Berk is very different from the story that was widely reported in the press — which made it a deliberate distinction that Berk had abruptly chosen to quit the series.
Berk explained during this new interview that the Fab Five signed a seven-cycle contract when Queer Eye began. And that original, long-standing contract ended in Sep. 2022 after the cast members filmed two seasons in New Orleans.
Specifically, Berk recalled that “the Fab Five and the crew, we all stood there, and we took pictures and cried” on the last day of shooting. “We thought we were done,” he said, adding that he immediately started planning for new creative endeavors.
But due to a shortage of original content — likely due to the SAG and WGA strikes of 2023 — Netflix decided to renew Queer Eye and offered the Fab Five a new contract that would have them committing to four more cycles of the show. According to Berk, he immediately chose not to sign the contract, and it was his understanding that the rest of the Fab Five felt the same way.
And yet, for reasons that Berk didn’t disclose, his four costars chose to sign those new contracts with Queer Eye after all, which subsequently gave the appearance that he was alone in making a sudden and individual choice to quit the series. “And with only one of us not coming back, Netflix felt [it] could recast one person,” Berk noted.
Overall, though, Berk made it clear that he wanted to do this interview to “extinguish some of the speculation,” noting he and France “we will be fine.”
Queer Eye season 8 is now streaming on Netflix.
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Bernardo Sim is a writer, content creator, and the deputy editor of Out. Born in Brazil, he currently lives in South Florida.
Bernardo Sim is a writer, content creator, and the deputy editor of Out. Born in Brazil, he currently lives in South Florida.
