Jonathan Van Ness Responds to Claims of Workplace Abuse While Filming Queer Eye – Hollywood Life
After three months, Jonathan Van Ness, who is nonbinary and uses he/they/she pronouns, spoke about the allegations made against them and how it “isn’t really based in reality.”
The 37-year-old hairstylist and Queer Eye star revealed on an episode of the podcast Table Manners that their “whole Queer Eye family had like first learned about this article in like December.”
“There’s someone who’s gonna write an investigative takedown 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,” they added. “So that could drop any day now. Just so you know.’”
With increased exposé anticipation, Van Ness recounted feeling like they were “walking on eggshells” in the time between learning of the article and its March publish date. They even referenced some business troubles JVN Hair, their own hair care brand named using their initials, was having, such as bankruptcy.
“So from January to March, I was walking on eggshells being like, ‘When is this going to happen?’ And then it finally did happen.”
It came during a “vulnerable” time, Van Ness said, “I think a lot of people were 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—.’”
One anonymous source told Rolling Stone, “They’re really centered around having this warmth, love, and care for other people”, but allegedly what you saw on your screen was not consistent with some “demeaning” behavior crew members experienced.
No matter how Jonathan felt afterward, they did admit the article made them pause and take a look inward: “Even though I do believe that that article was overwhelmingly untrue and done in bad faith,” they began, “there have obviously been times throughout my career where you’re like stressed out. Or like I may have been 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.”