Jonathan Van Ness is finally speaking out about allegations of their on-set behavior.
Jonathan Van Ness is breaking their silence. On the latest episode of the Table Manners podcast, the Queer Eye star spoke out for the first time about a Rolling Stone exposé that claimed the hairstylist was "emotionally abusive" and had "rage issues" on the show's set.
"Our whole Queer Eye family had first learned about this article in December," Van Ness said. "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.'"
From the time Van Ness was warned about the article until its March publication, they were "just walking on eggshells."
"And then it did finally happen," they recalled. "One thing it taught me was that I had been getting so much self-esteem from social [media] and my job. I didn't really think I did get so much self-esteem from it [until it was threatened]."
The exposé, Van Ness believes, came at a time when "a lot of people were like looking for a reason to hate me or looking for a reason to be like, 'See, I always knew that they were a fake c**t and this is the proof.'"
Through the tumultuous period, which also came amid a challenging time for Van Ness' hair product line, Van Ness leaned on their husband, Mark Peacock, as well as their family and team.
"I didn't even get on social media [or] look at my phone for three weeks. Anytime I would try to dip my toe in, I would immediately see something that was so intensely hurtful," Van Ness recalled. "I think people forget, no matter how famous you are, you're still a person... I certainly am in a more comfortable place financially than I was five years ago, but that article came at an incredibly vulnerable time, for my hair care company, for my whole career. It just was really rough."
While Van Ness noted that they're "someone who champions self-acceptance," the article made them realize that "sometimes self-acceptance looks like having to love yourself through incredibly hard times."
"Even though I do believe that that article was overwhelmingly untrue and done in bad faith," Van Ness said, "there have obviously been times through my career where you're stressed out. Or 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 were times where I could have been better."
"But I think also, being a survivor of abuse and talking about everything I've talked about, I internalized it so badly. I was like, 'Oh my god, is it true? Am I really this bad person?'" they continued. "It forced me to just really learn how to slow down, disengage and then really love myself."
Van Ness noted that, sometimes, self-love "looks like feeling your feelings."
"I just had to be sad for a minute. I just had to kind of withdraw and go into myself and feel it, and then once I got done feeling it, I was able to get the language to say what I just said," they said. "It just kind of paralyzed me, and then it took me a while to learn how I wanted to talk about it or if I wanted to talk about it."
At the time of the exposé, a source told ET, "Some of the cast and crew of Queer Eye has felt like Jonathan Van Ness has had a sense of entitlement for quite some time. It has caused tension and awkwardness among them."
"They feel as though Jonathan can be quick to react in a negative way if something doesn’t go Jonathan’s way or as planned," the source added. "Some of those who have worked with Jonathan have felt intimidated by Jonathan and, like, Jonathan is difficult to work with."
The Rolling Stone article was published one week after Netflix announced that Jeremiah Brent would replace Bobby Berk on Queer Eye for season 9. ET spoke to culinary expert Antoni Porowski following the article and cast shake-up, and he gave an update about how things were going on the show's set.
"We all hang out together and we all love we've been sharing a trailer since day one. Sometimes we're not gonna get along, but, at the end of the day, we're a family," he said. "... Through thick and thin, we're in it together."
RELATED CONTENT:
