Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness has addressed the allegations they were a "monster" with "rage issues" on the set of the beloved Netflix series.
The 37-year-old—who identifies as non-binary and interchangeably uses he/him, they/them, and she/her pronouns—sat down for an interview on the latest edition of Jessie and Lennie Ware's Table Manners podcast and addressed the allegations publicly for the first time.
"Our whole Queer Eye family had first learned about this article in December," said Van Ness about the Rolling Stone exposé, per Deadline. "I heard… ‘There’s someone who’s gonna write an investigative takedown/exposé piece about you that isn’t really based in reality, but can certainly have a lot of things taken out of context to make you look as bad as possible. So that could drop any day now. Just so you know.'"
Van Ness said that after hearing about the then-upcoming exposé, they were "walking on eggshells" until it was published in March 2024. "I think a lot of people were like looking for a reason to hate me or like looking for a reason to be like, ‘See, I always knew that they were a fake cunt and this is the proof,'" they continued. "My family was so supportive of my husband and my team, but I didn’t even get on social media, like look at my phone for three weeks and anytime I tried to dip my toe in, I would immediately see something that was so intensely hurtful."
They said that the article arrived at "an incredibly vulnerable time" in their career, and it was "really rough" dealing with it. "Even though I do believe that that article was overwhelmingly untrue and done in bad faith there have obviously been times through my career where you’re like stressed out,” Van Ness said. "Or like I may have been like elbow deep in highlights and was like, ‘No, I can’t talk about that right now.’ I know that there was times where I like could have been better."
According to the exposé, Van Ness met with executives at Netflix to discuss their alleged behavior but one source said there was "no accountability at all." One insider said there was "a real emotion of fear around when they get angry," and it's "almost like a cartoon where it oozes out of them."
