Queer Eye's grooming guy
Jonathan Van Ness says he was constantly verbally abused growing up.
In February, Netflix premiered its
“reimagined” Queer Eye featuring five openly gay stylists.
In a The New York Times Magazine
interview, Van Ness said that he was prepared for the show to be a
flop.
“When you've been on Instagram and
Twitter long enough, you know how mean people can be,” he said. “I
was prepared for the worst.”
He added that he came out in the sixth
grade and was “extremely flamboyant as a child.”
“I literally cannot [hide my
sexuality],” he said. “Like, if you picture me at 13, imagine
big curly hair, imagine buck teeth, imagine me at 5-foot-4; I could
not stop talking about, like Miss Alabama, who had won the Miss
America pageant. I could not pass [for straight] if you held a gun
to my head. I can't do it.”
“I don't think it's overdramatic to
say that I was verbally abused, like, very constantly on an
hour-to-hour basis, especially in school,” Van
Ness added. “That's partially where I got my sense of humor
from, because I really had to learn how to be resourceful to keep a
smile on my face and to keep myself entertained.”