"Design Star's" Josh Johnson and Scott Corridan

Although he comes across in conversation and on the show as soft-spoken, even gentle, the flamboyant Josh isn't likely to fade into the background anywhere he goes. “It's not just being gay, but all of the gay things about me,” he said.

Was it the fabulousness again? He laughed. “Because being gay makes me the way that I am, liking shiny, big, beautiful things – not that you have to be gay to do that. But it's all in the same persona that they embraced about me.” He paused. “From the very beginning of production . . . gay was never mentioned, it really wasn't. It was just like, you know, you do this, and you're sparkly and we love it. Be yourself and do whatever you want to do. Represent yourself and don't hold back. So I was like, hell yeah. I hadn't planned to hold anything back anyway, because, you know, they'd selected me. It's kind of like Patti LaBelle said, ‘Long time ago you asked for Patti LaBelle; you get the Patti LaBelle.'”

Although Design Star is still primarily a design competition, it is focusing a bit more on personalities in its second season than its first. But there is refreshingly little backstage backstabbing, and it's actually impossible to get either Josh or Scott to say anything negative about anyone else on the show. In fact, the phrase each man most frequently uses to describe the other cast members, whether discussing their friendship with each other, with the women on the team, or with their straight male castmates is “falling in love.”

“Within thirty minutes of knowing Josh, all of us fell madly, deeply in love with him,” said Scott.

“There's conflict and there's drama, but the level of respect that was established at the beginning is what helped us all kind of fall in love with each other,” Josh said. “I mean, that's the only way I know how to put it. I will carry these friendships on throughout the rest of my life.”

One night, Scott said, when he had gone upstairs to rest a little after a challenge and Josh was showering, the rest of the cast got into a discussion. “Todd (Davis) and Robb (Mariani), who clearly are heterosexual alpha males, started this conversation of, okay, if you had to take one of them home, which one would you take?"

“Everyone is engaged in this conversation, the girls, the guys, everybody, even some of the producers are laughing behind the cameras and kind of throwing in their two cents, whatever, and it was hysterical what Todd and what Robb both agreed on. Todd and Robb both agreed that for the best night out on the town, hands-down it was gonna be Josh, but if you wanted to take someone home to meet your parents for the rest of your life, it was gonna be Scott.

“It's just so endearing to know what it was proof of, for me, was that the straight boys – and they are very straight – have fallen in love with the gay boys and we gay boys had clearly fallen in love with both of them. They're both incredible guys, and so, it was neat, and there was never an issue moving forward from that point, never.”

In his first challenge, Scott was paired with Kim Myles, a hairdresser from Queens. They gave a dramatic makeover to the team's penthouse dining area, earning praise from the judges and apparently having a great time doing it.

“Kim and I bonded fast and furious,” said Scott. “And I adore Adriana (Nussbaumer), and whether it's Design Star or anything that follows for her after the show she has got a huge opportunity . . . she could be the next female Ty Pennington in the Latin market. She is such a gifted and amazing human being. I adore Todd ( Davis )…. he is a joker and a prankster but when you cut through it, he has the soul of a god and he's an amazing human being. Will (Smith) is amazing. Will is all talk and all bullshit, but when you cut through it he has one of the deepest souls I've ever met.”

Will and Josh teamed up and wowed the judges with an earth-toned transformation on one of the penthouse's two bedrooms. “There were so many odd couples in this whole experience from beginning to end insofar as the challenges,” said Scott. “Will and Josh were really one of the oddest couples, but it was the Southern sensibility that made them a quick connect – that and their similar aesthetic. They were flawless together; they were amazing.”

Josh agreed “Will and I had a lot in common as far as where we came from, the part of the country, the churches we went to, the singers we like. It was great to identify with somebody who was a lot like me in a lot of ways.”

Josh described their recent reunion at the show's launch last month in New York as “incredible,” and said, “All the hype, and the blue carpet thing, and the press and the media and the New York stuff is all great, but to me the best thing was to get to see those people again and catch up…. Everyone was so genuine and glad to see each other, and we all laughed and cried together. I think it's a rare dynamic, because any other situation like that could be exactly the opposite. On any other reality show, no one ever wants to see anybody from that experience again. But it's the total opposite, and I feel like I'm not the only one who feels that way, because we've all talked about it.”

Scott, who suffered an injury during the filming of the show, said the cast reacted as friends, not competitors. “What I was most touched by and emotional over was how every single person, on opposing teams and otherwise, all rallied around what I was going through and supported me through it, which was amazing. That was one of the most incredible moments for us as a group…. It's a testament to the casting that HGTV and Scripps did with the eleven of us. They picked wildly different people one to the next, but they also picked eleven amazing designers who still respect one another as designers first and foremost.”