Interview with "Design Star"'s Josh "Sparkle" Johnson

AE: One thing I wanted to ask you about. I read the HGTV Design Star message boards a little bit more this year than I have ever done before, while I was writing the recaps, and I was troubled upon occasion by the really nasty anti-gay posts. I want to make it clear, those posts were always removed by HGTV as soon as they went up. I’m just saying I was amazed that there are that many people watching HGTV and Design Star who don’t like us very much.
JS: Right, right.

AE: And I find that very weird and very incompatible with how HGTV treats the issue. I love the way that they just kind of put us in wherever we go and it’s no big deal.
JS: Right.

AE: Some were aimed at you, as I’m sure you know. Some were aimed at other contestants and I saw a lot of the suggestion that since David had won last year that I guess that’s it, that’s the only gay guy we are ever gonna get on HGTV. [Laughter] One is our limit.
JS: Right.

AE: I asked you about this when I interviewed you for Design Star Season 2 and I’m going to ask you about it again: do you feel that there is something of a burden to overcome for gay contestants, not from HGTV, but from the viewers who are the ones, in the end, who vote for the ultimate winner? Do you think, specifically, this could potentially hurt Matt this season? (Note: At the time of the interview, the winner had not been announced.)
JS: Well, let me preface this by saying I try to stay away from that message board as much as I can. Because while you want to know what people are saying about you, and I’m sure you’ve read the positive way outweighs the negative, those few shots are very poisonous and harmful. I do appreciate the fact that HGTV does remove that.

AE: Yes.
JS: Because let’s face it – if you took the gay people off, there’d be no viewers. You know what I’m saying?

AE: [Laughter] Yeah!
JS: Just like if you took out all the gay people out of churches, there would be no music on Sunday morning and let’s face it, that’s the truth. That’s just something that I think the network is very aware of. They don’t pull back and not show gay couples on their shows or not have gay contestants because they know that’s just the way it is. And I think it is very regional and depends on where you live. I know where I live, in the South, while there are conservative people and liberal people mixed in as there are in all of America, there are still centralized and concentrated conservative attitudes in a lot of areas. I think that that can be an issue for some people.

A contestant can have the A1 design, the A1 personality, A1 hosting and they see the gay part as a negative. To me that’s so 50 years ago that I choose not to even entertain that, because to me it’s just ignorant. And I know just by living in the South and where I’m from that you can explain your heart away to someone that is otherwise a decent and wonderful person, but if they have those roots and those religious ties or those beliefs, it is very hard to shift that. It filters into everything in their life, what they are watching on TV, how they raise their kids, what friends they choose. It’s very disheartening to me to see being gay be considered a drawback or a negative, when it really has nothing to do with it.

Whether you’re gay or straight doesn’t have anything to do with how you perform on the show. That’s part of you; its not all of you, but they make it – that overshadows all of the good stuff from people that are making comments. So I think that’s really sad, and I think that’s just a growth issue. I think that HGTV is well aware of who their audience demographic is and the people that come on the show, whether it’s reality or otherwise. I think that they are really aware and you know what? Look at everybody else. I mean Bravo and Lifetime and all of these networks that are – its just there. It’s just, so what?

And I think that the positive again just completely outweighs the negative when it comes to that. A lot of people when they read that stuff laugh just like I do, whether they are gay or straight. A mom, a dad, a grandmother, whatever because you know what? My fans from there are anywhere from 4 years old to 84 years old. And they are from everywhere. That’s just the truth of it to me. I don’t know what I said last year, but I hope its kind of in the same vein. I may be a little bit more verbose this year, but I think that that’s generally how I feel about it and that each year I think will have a mix of people, not just sexual preference, but everything.

AE: I’m ready for the first lesbian contestant.
JS: I know!

AE: So they gotta do that.
JS: What about that? [Laughter]

AE: Yeah, yeah. I’m not happy about that. I’m gonna write an angry letter or something. [Laughter] JS: Yeah, you should.

AE: We watch TV too. [Laughter] Now, on a personal note, anything happening in the romantic world for you?
JS: Oh well, I don’t know if I told you that I’ve been with my current partner, Michael, for four years. We just had our four year anniversary.