Watch: Queer Eye’s Karamo Brown Addresses “Divide” With Former Costars
Tan France didn’t think Antoni Porowski was so fab at first.
In fact, the fashion expert revealed it took some time for him and Antoni to bond when they met during season one of Queer Eye in 2018.
“Even though he’s one of my closest friends in the world, we started out as complete strangers,” Tan admitted to Jesse Tyler Ferguson on the June 23 episode of his Dinner’s On Me podcast. “Somebody I did not think I liked at all when I first met him, and then we became very, very close.”
As for why he was suspicious of the foodie upon first meeting, Tan confessed, “I thought he was too nice.”
“After work, I need someone to gossip with and say, ‘Hey, what that bitch said to me today,'” the 43-year-old explained. “Like, ‘Can you believe that happened?’ And I need them to say, ‘Yeah, I did hear it.’ Like, ‘Can you f–king believe she said this to me?'”
Simply put, Tan noted, “I want somebody to ‘yes, and’ me. And he was not that person.”
At least, not at first.
After Tan told Antoni, “I don’t think you and I are gonna be friends and that’s such a shame,” the 42-year-old dropped the glossy facade.
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“He was like, ‘Oh no, I’m dying to gossip. I thought that you were too nice. I didn’t like you ’cause you were too sweet,'” Tan recalled. “I’m like, ‘Oh, I’ve been waiting for someone to bitch with.’ He was like, ‘Great. Let’s do this.’ And so we had this one evening together, which was magical and changed my life.”
Soon after, the two we’re certified BFFs.
“It was like two-and-a-half, three weeks into filming Queer Eye and I was like, ‘Oh thank God. I just needed someone to talk to,'” Tan remembered. “‘Cause I was really struggling, really struggling with being on TV, being on camera. I didn’t know what to do with it. And then I had this person who was there who was the only one who was similar to me. He didn’t drink. He didn’t go out at night.”
However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing on set after that as Tan detailed not seeing eye-to-eye with another member of the Fab Five.
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“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,” the reality star—who shares two kids with husband Rob France—continued. “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.'”
The situation left Tan feeling “really heavy” as he was “navigating something so different” than Antoni, Karamo Brown—who previously shed light on rifts and fighting among the cast—Jonathan Van Ness and Bobby Berk (who departed after season eight and was replaced by Jeremiah Brent).
But now, Tan is happy to report his family has come around in accepting their gay son.
“They’re a huge part of my life,” he reflected. “They love my husband. They love my kids. We are so close again.”
Tan and Antoni aren’t the only costars who once had beef. Keep reading for more celebrities who have been candid about their bad blood.
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