A Look Back at Bravo's "Queer Eye"

AE: [laughter] Really?! There were Queer Eye Halloween costumes?
TA: Oh, my gosh. All over the place.

AE: That’s awesome! Did the show also have an impact on gay men of a certain age in metropolitan cities who for all appearances are totally comfortable with themselves – and yet they might also say, “You know, this has been empowering for me”?
KD: Without a doubt

JR: I’ve definitely heard that.

KD: I remember being at HRC events or AIDS walk events, any sort of numerous gay events where we were introduced or spoke. And then afterwards there was an opportunity to sort of hang out with people. And people would come up privately and say, “Hey thanks a lot for what you do. It’s really helped me deal with my family or helped me.”

JR: Those are the events that I just got numbers at. Damn it. [laughter] No one came up to me for guidance.

TA: The show has had a major impact on Jai’s love life. Huge.

AE: [concerned] Has it Jai? I’m hoping that it has.
JR: Oh, geez. No, it really has. It’s funny I actually kind of grew up on Queer Eye. I learned things … I came to the show as just strictly one thing. I was in New York City acting. I was making the rounds, was working, bouncing from show to show [Rodriguez played Angel in Rent on Broadway, and starred in the Off-Broadway musical Zanna Don’t before being cast on QE], grew up on Long Island. It’s not like I came from privilege. I learned so many life lessons from Queer Eye.

I also live in Los Angeles. I moved out here a year ago and the move was really kind of scary because it was basically me separating myself from friends and family in New York and just trying life out here. When I looked at my apartment the other day, I said “Oh my God! I am a Queer Eye Guy!” It was totally decorated correctly. All the pictures are hung properly on the wall. And I was like oh, my God. How nauseating.

KD: And Jai, when you started the show, you didn’t even have a learner’s permit. Now you have a full-fledged driver’s license.

JR: I just got my license in November!

AE: Congratulations! Jai, you’ve talked about having a conservative religious family. And Ted you once mentioned your Republican mother sending you articles about gay marriage. And you talked about how the show has changed people’s perceptions. I’m wondering if being part of a show with "Queer" in the title that was so celebrated, affected the perceptions of people around you in terms of your family and your hometown friends. Did it maybe expand their ability to accept?
TA: I should say first that my mom is staunchly pro-gay marriage. With a capital M.

AE: Now is that in the last four years since QE began airing?
TA: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. The funny thing about Queer Eye with my family, most of which is southern and conservative and votes very badly. [laughter] When I told my parents I was doing the show, they were of course completely appalled and terrified. They thought I was going to get killed and they hated the title. And then, about a month after the show started airing and it was such a hit, A, they loved the show against all odds, but B, it was a real gift for my mother because none of my relatives will ever again ask her why I’m not married or don’t have a girlfriend. [laughter]

AE: Yeah. It was a big coming out for them too!
TA: Well, exactly. Just as it is for most gay people. Your family has to come out, too, and acknowledge that they’re the parents of a gay kid. Well, we took care of that mission 100%. We are super out, man. We are way, way out.

JR: My family, again, is very religious, and when I told them [that he was joining QE] my aunts and uncles were very supportive. It was really my mother that was the one who had the problem with it. And then at some point her dentist, and the people at the library, and basically the rest of the world [was fine with it]. Once she saw the rest of the world being accepting, suddenly it was easier for her to deal with it.

And then we were having a Christmas episode and it happened to be airing right at Christmastime, and I was on Long Island with some other family members, and she just watched it. And ever since then, she just loves the guys on the show. She’s like, “Oh my, God! Kyan’s so hot!” And then she learned how to make Ted’s crab cakes that he made on Oprah. [laughter] It was funny how the show kind of brought people in, because it wasn’t like we were being advocates for anything. We were just kind of being ourselves and letting you into who we are at our wackiest state.

TA: And then after all this progress, along comes Larry Craig [the Republican Idaho Senator who pled guilty to disorderly conduct after being arrested in a Minneapolis airport men’s bathroom during a sex-sting operation] and all families think we’re getting busy in airport bathrooms.