Karamo Brown Talks About The New Season Of Netflix's "Queer Eye"

Welcome to Build. I'm your host, Ricky Camilleri, and, uh, anyone who knows me knows that I am quite pessimistic about everything. But our next guest is on this show that, well, I think it could just save America. It could unite us in acceptance and love, and I just love it so much I might start crying right now. Let's take a look at the trailer for Queer Eye.

I see a beard that is out of order and out of date.

Oh my God.

They have a really special treat this week, guys. We're doing a lady. That's me. Yeah! I haven't done a lady in years. Personally, I've never done a lady.

His grooming routine.

Is nonexistent.

Perfect. She thinks I have potential for a better self. What are you hoping to get from us? I just want to be able to be visible and be present and let everybody know that I'm okay. Who would have thought a bunch of gays would come to build a community center for a church? Oh my God.

You came into my life. You, you, you, you. I'm sorry, Dad.

What I show to people sometimes might not be the full me.

Men have body issues. We just don't talk about it as comfortably as we should.

She completes me in a way that nobody else ever has.

She's the one.

This is about to be epic.

This man is now confident.

This has been a life-changing week for me. People are going to know that they can thrive and succeed because of you. Continue making this world a better place. Oh, come here, Anthony.

Anthony.

Oh, my baby. <LYRICS>Things keep getting better.</LYRICS> This is the one I have to spank right here.

That's funny.

That's the one we have to spank.

Everybody, please welcome Mr. Culture from the Fab Five, Karamo Brown.

Hi, everybody. Can I first of all say, hi, Shannon, you all? If you've seen the season, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Karamo, what— what's going on? What is this like for you? This is crazy. You shot both these seasons at the same time. The first one came out in February. We're now June, and the second one's out. And the show is a runaway success. I imagine no one could have expected this.

We didn't expect it.

Yeah.

Yeah, we did not expect it at all. It's been an extraordinary ride. And we have to, first of all, for me especially, say thank you to you all. Everyone who supports the show, I consider you all friends. So I just thank you for showing up for us because it means the world to us. You know, we're like— it's like when you have a baby and you say, oh, look at my baby, you know, and they're like— people could be like, oh, your baby's ugly. But luckily they said our baby's cute, and the baby this time being us. So we appreciate it, but it's been an extraordinary ride.

When did you realize— was there a moment when you're like, oh, this is beyond what we expected, this is much bigger than we could have ever anticipated?

You know what, every single day it actually— it's a real reminder because I would want to say like, oh, you know, after So the first 3 weeks, we got it. But what happened is people would come up to us and tell us how much they love the show. And we would sort of go back into our bubbles with the 5 of us and forget, and then come back out in the world and be like, oh, people still like it. And then we'd go back in our bubbles again and come back. So it's constantly rediscovering the fact that people love the show. And we never take it for granted, which I think is the best thing.

How often are you noticed on the street these days?

All the time now. Yeah. Yeah, Pride weekend was yesterday. And this was like—

Yeah, that's not fair. That doesn't count in what we're talking about.

Well, I've got to say, yesterday was kind of crazy. We were in Australia and London, and people were camped out of our hotels and chasing us through the malls. It was like we were a boy band, like legit. And I was—

Do you feel like a boy band?

I would if I wasn't almost 40. Yeah.

Well, they are too now.

I feel like a dad band. That's what I feel like.

Let's go back to the beginning of this. I imagine they auditioned you guys to a certain degree. Like you shot a video, you sent it in. There was an interview process. What was that whole, like, what were they looking for when you first went into the offices of the production company?

Sure, so my process was a little, all of our processes were different. Jonathan started with the process like a year and a half before. Anthony came in because Ted Allen, who was on the original show, recommended him for the show. And so he started auditioning maybe like 6 months in. Bobby came in a week before. Casting had finished. I came in a day before casting had finished, and Tan got found on Instagram. So we all had different processes to get there, and they brought about 60 people to a 3-day hotel conference for us to all meet each other. It was like 6 in every category, and they just were like pairing us up. And ironically, on the very first day, in the very first 30 minutes, Bobby, Tan, and I locked arms, did not separate. Jonathan was the next to come over, and Anthony came over. And we just were like, oh, we're just going to be friends even if we don't get this. And we started supporting each other through the casting. And ironically, we're in different categories. And I think they saw that natural chemistry, and we all made it.

And where did they come— where did it come from to have you as the culture expert? Because culture expert is very broad. There's a very broad definition for, I think, culture in what you do on this show.

Yes. Yes, my category should be called life coach.

Because that's what I do. I agree.

Yeah, I think it's just a novelty to the throwback of what we did before. But like I said, I came in very last. They had already finished the casting and were already bringing everyone in. And I saw on Watch What Happens Live Andy Cohen and Carson Kressley talking about the show. And I called my manager and asked if I could get an audition. And they said no, they already found everyone they needed. And luckily, this beautiful woman who's in casting named Gretchen gave me a chance and said, he can come in. "but we already have our museum curators and our artists and all these things, so I don't know what he's gonna bring because he's not any of those things." And they were like, "Well, he was a social worker and a psychotherapist before. Give him a shot. He has a new idea of how this show could go." And she took a shot on me, and in the casting, I just kept saying, "I wanna fix the inside. I wanna fix the inside." You know, as a culture, it's not— we're surrounded by culture because of technology, but a lot of people don't know how to manage their expectations for themselves and for life because of the fact that they're inundated with so much information constantly. And I wanted to help people to get past the blockage, figure out what's going on with them so that these external changes could last.

Without giving you, you know, too much credit, because there are 5 of you and there are producers, and I don't want to give you all the credit for the show, but I do think without that addition, I don't think the show would be as successful if it was just about changing their house or changing their clothes. There is something about what you do in terms of taking all of the other 4 packages and building it into one sort of spiritual life coach package, that is where the tears often come from. It's the moment where the person feels personally changed by the end. They're not just like, oh, I look nice. It feels like when the episode is done, they could go on to live a better life.

Yeah, well, I think to have sustainable change, you have to figure out what is blocking you, what is stopping you, what happened early on in your life that has made you feel as if you can't achieve, that you can't be who you want to be, that you can't do the things that you want to do. And if we all really think about it, there's a moment in our life that triggered us, that told us It could have been a coach, a mother, a parent. It could have been a babysitter that said, you know what? Stop dressing like that. Stop doing that. Oh, that's your dream? That's not a dream for you. And we start to believe it and internalize it. And so what the other guys do is exceptional. I could never build a house like Bobby. Let's be very real.

The tears flow when people see their new home.

Exactly, yes. You know what I mean? If any of you let me cut your hair after this, just know that you will be bald. And so we all have our expertise in what we do. But for me, I think the reason that our heroes, the guys and women that we help, the reason that they're having sustainable change is because I get messages constantly saying, "I practice what you taught me, the tools you gave me, so that I can continue on this journey." And that's the key thing.

So do you still keep in touch with some of your subjects? Have you heard from them at all?

I keep in touch with all of them.

Really?

There's probably only maybe one or two, if I'm being honest, that I don't keep in touch with. And it's not by design, it's just that that they just don't really interact with social media or we've lost contact. But the rest of them I keep in touch with because for me, again, a lot of what you don't see, you see me on these long car rides with them or in long conversations. I'm giving them tools so they can practice so that way if they ever get to a place where they start to feel like they need to digress back to who they were before, they can say certain mantras to themselves. They can start to practice certain things to get over that hurdle so that they can continue on this journey of growth.

It's also, you know, I think a lot of people see the show and say, well, you can't really change someone that much over the course of 4 days, but 4 days is actually very long. And when we watch the show, we are actually seeing the greatest hits of those 4 days. Yeah. So I'd imagine if you're with Tanner, if you're with whoever else outside of the car ride as well, there is so much that you're offering up that we're not seeing.

Yeah, because we are always together on those field trips. A lot of times There's a lot of scenes that are cut. Like, we shoot for 4 days, each day almost 8 hours, which then gets turned into 42 to 46 minutes. So there's so much that's cut. So we go on multiple field trips, as we like to call them, together. And you don't see those things where we're like ganging up on the guy or the woman and saying, OK, this is what you have to do. This is what's going on. And so we're really chiseling quickly. And we really look to each other to make sure that we're all on the same page. So if—

Do you guys like powwow outside?

Oh my gosh. What we used to do every night was get on the roof of of our building and watch RuPaul's Drag Race and would powwow about our heroes. That's a legit thing. We would eat and powwow. We'd have queens. We'd be queens. We'd just be talking. We'd be figuring it all out. And it worked every single time because, for instance, if I know Tan was taking him to the store tomorrow, I would say, in my conversation with this person, he expressed the fact that his wife doesn't ever tell him that he's attractive. And what that would then do, I would tell Tran that so that Tan could say, how do you feel? Wouldn't you want your wife to tell you you're attractive? So that way we're all on the same storyline, we're all hitting the same points, and we're not just confusing the person with a bunch of information that they can't hold on to.

Who's been your toughest hero so far? Toughest to sort of break through with?

Ooh. Um.

I mean, could it possibly be the kid in this season who you give a lie detector test to?

No, he was the simplest.

Was he really?

Oh yeah. No. Those— anyone who lies or those type of things, those are simple because those you can actually— it's tangible. I can see it. I can catch it. It's the ones who say, I'm fine, but you realize they're masking something. So I think in season 1, it'd probably have been Neil. He sent me a long email that was so beautiful saying he was so thankful to me for helping him out because he tried to joke his way through. And there's a lot of conversations you don't see where I just was like, I'm not going to let you joke your way through this.

Neil is the young man with the dog, right? The dog, long hair.

He's from Indian descent. And from season 2, I'd probably say it was Jason Vogelstein. He is the one that is Burning Man. And he's in his late 40s, sort of this Peter Pan syndrome. I'm not really ready to grow up. I don't really want to succeed at life. But—

Someone who's having a tough time recognizing the place that they're in. And like you said, he's consistently going, I'm fine. This is—

I'm fine.

I'm fine. And you can see it in the first 3. It's really— that's a tough episode in a lot of ways because it's 3/4 of that episode is just him kind of going along with what you guys are doing, and it's hard to see the change.

Exactly. So those would probably be the two hardest, but we always get to the core of what's going on and help them to succeed by the end of the 4 days, which is, you know, no ego, but is a testament to us and like our— the hard work where we try to put in for the show.

Now, one thing that people, uh, always bring up, and it's not necessarily dated even though you've probably talked about it already, is from the first season when you, uh, the car ride that you take with the, uh, the guy, the police officer who, uh, ends up making avocado and grapefruit for his wife, which is still one of my favorite moments of the show when he tells her what it is in his Southern drawl. It's very funny. Uh, take us back to that car ride. I mean, was that something that you and the guys had talked about the night before, that you were gonna sort of talk to him about this and try to create a, uh, sort of build a bridge between the two of you? Or was that something that kind of came up in the moment?

So any of those culturally relevant conversations are things that come up in the moment. My heart feels like it needs to happen. And I could talk a little bit later about the Skyler episode, our first trans hero. 'Cause similar to with the Corey, what I did with him was in the moment, I was like, how can I push the culture forward in a way that we can start really having conversations, hard conversations that we need to have? And originally, I wasn't supposed to drive that morning. Bobby was supposed to drive, but it was 3 hours away, and so I knew I would fall asleep, 'cause I have a little bit of narcolepsy, so I fall asleep, I fall asleep everywhere, all the time. And I was like, I don't want to fall asleep, so I have to drive. And production fought me for almost 3 and a half hours. We were late that day. Because they knew they had a prank coming, and they didn't want to have an African American in the front seat during that prank. And so I literally kept saying, why don't you want me to drive? What is the problem here? Like, it's 7 o'clock in the morning. I'm getting more and more aggravated. Every time you tell me no, I'm getting more aggravated. And they were just like, Karamo, we don't want you to drive. We don't want you to drive. And so they eventually had to tell Bobby, but none of the rest of us knew. Because they were like, if something happens, Someone in this car needs to know to be able to say, hey, this is actually a prank.

And then wasn't the following day both you and Tan were quite upset about the prank, right?

Yeah, we were very upset about the prank because, you know, the thing was that we get it with a white guy being in the front seat, you thought it was okay, but in my personal opinion, I don't think it's okay with anyone. Because I just think we're at a place right now where the militarization of police officers All of us as Americans, we're afraid right now. And so, but I was happy, you know, even through that anger, was very happy that producers did set that up because it then created this dialogue that when we got in the car, we were actually going somewhere to have a conversation about him being a father and sort of break into that. And I just thought to myself, how often do you see an African American man and a police officer in a car and have an opportunity with no one around to throw in their opinions to sort of speak on real issues. And that car ride was 2.5 hours that got broken down to maybe 2.5 minutes. And we, we went in on everything. And for me, it was healing to the fact of he acknowledged that there are so many bad police officers that are abusing their power, which gave me an ability to say, you know what, now I can recognize there are some good police officers. Because until that, I had my guard up, he had his guard up. But because we both listened to each other, it created this dialogue where I still get messages from some of the most random people in Middle America that you would never think would support a show with 5 gay men that are like, I love this show. You've opened my eyes. You've now made me want to support the Black Lives Matter movement. You've now made me realize why saying all lives matter is disrespectful to the Black lives that have been lost. And I'm like, wow, great. Similar to Skylar, you know, my field trip with Skylar was not supposed to be taking him to the DMV, but as someone who's very close with many members of the trans community, was a social worker, and worked with many trans youth, I thought to myself, I know one of the struggles. Usually in the media, we only hear about the bathroom, and that's sort of been what we're throwing out to America as the struggle of the trans community, is they can't find a restroom. And of course, that needs to be addressed. But the trans people I know have these struggles that all of us can relate to, one of them being a driver's license, and going into a DMV feeling scared because they're being denied from someone. That immediately, once Skyler said, "I can't get my license changed," I was like, "Oh, producers, we're going to the DMV." And again, the messages I get of like, "Wow, I didn't know that trans community felt unsafe, couldn't get on planes, couldn't go to bars." We're changing the culture, and that's what my goal was.

Yeah, there is something, and I said this at the top, and I think it maybe sounded like I was joking, but there is something about the show that is so open-hearted and that it does feel like it could unite people if they watch the show. Like, I can't imagine showing this to someone and have them saying, "I didn't like it," or, "It made me mad." It's like, no, it's just pure joy. It is pure delightful joy no matter who you are. And I hate to, like, quote Hillary Clinton when she was talking about Trump supporters, who's just like, "There's some good ones who are kind of confused in some of this, and there's a basket of deplorables." And honestly, if you don't like Queer Eye, you fall into the basket of deplorables for me. Like, because it's just like everyone that I've shown it to or that I've— that when I saw it, it's like, oh, there's— this is just pure. Yeah, this is just pure joy. Does it feel like that when you're shooting it? Does it feel like, you know, work when you're shooting?

Well, it's work, but I'm also with 4 of my best friends now, so it doesn't feel like work, you know, because we're— it's like summer camp and these are activities that we have to do during summer camp. It's just that our activities are to help someone have a better life. But it's funny when you talk about how divided we are as a country in that some people would not like this show. I was actually on a show this morning, and I was on Megyn Kelly. And I was speaking about the fact that we need to—

You went on Megyn Kelly?

I did. But I think she's a phenomenal host. And I also believe that her audience needs to be exposed to me as a gay, black man. If I only allow her audience to keep seeing white, straight men and women that, you know, also are Republicans, then they're never going to grow or have the opportunity to grow or learn what my perspective is. But this morning was the very first time that I had said something about America, you know, people who are marginalized feeling like enough is enough and we need to figure out a way to come together, that I got booed. And I was like, oh, I'm getting booed right now. This is—

you got booed for saying that America needs to come together?

Booed me. No joke. This clip is out. I got booed.

For saying that America needs to come together.

Yeah, that's not the exact line, but it's along those lines of like, because we were talking about the Trump administration and other things. But what it made me realize is that we're still in a space that even though we think that there would be people who would watch Queer Eye and say, no, this is all pure because we are 100% positive. We're not trying to insult anyone. We're trying to be as open-minded as we can be. That there are still people that are closed off and that think that we have an agenda, that our agenda is to change them or to make this world, you know, to make them feel as if they're less than, or turn them to the ones that are marginalized, when that's not our intention. And, you know, being on that show this morning made me realize that if we're blessed to get a third season, we have to work even harder because now we've set the bar high for ourselves and If we really want to see a flip in this next administration, the next election, part of our job as being personalities in the media is to make sure that we're really reaching out to those people so that way when they start to vote, they can say, you know what, I've interacted with somebody who's different from me, and I realize now how my one vote could affect their life, and maybe I should think differently when I'm in that booth. So it's put a fire underneath my butt like you can't even imagine.

I think it's so interesting you use the word, the phrase marginalized communities, and we talk about polarization and division in this country, and you just made me think, and I hope this comes out as a question by the time I finish talking, that everybody kind of feels like a marginalized community, even if they are not statistically a marginalized community, or if their government is essentially their community and that is power. For some reason, affluent white communities feel as marginalized as like gay, black, Black communities, which is just incorrect in terms of the power dynamics of our country. But the spheres and the bubbles that we live in have allowed us to kind of feel that and fear all of the other communities as well, rather than recognizing our own power.

Well, that's what it is. It's fear-based. It's a fear-based tactic that— while why we have the president we have right now is because we've gotten to a space where we've told people like, no, you— if you let them succeed, you're not going to succeed. And whatever that group is. And I think it's about helping people to recognize that fear and helping them to get over that And even with some of our heroes on the show, that's what we do. We interact with several Trump supporters. And for us, it's about immediately come in and we've had little questions and little jabs that they put to us. And they're not being— they're not being trying to hurt us, but this is just how it's ingrained in them. And they say little things of like, well, you know, we're the last ones here. I'm almost like, what do you mean you're the last ones? You know, we're the ones that really don't have anything. And it's about We've heard it before. And it's about not judging the statement, for me especially. It's about saying, OK, I understand what you're saying. I'm going to listen to you, because I believe if you listen better, you'll live better. And so I listen to you, and I say, great. I hear what you're saying. So we have to understand, why do you feel as if you're marginalized now? Where has the shift in your perspective come from that you feel as if rights are going to be taken away from you? Because I want to really understand that. Once I can understand that, I can help challenge it without judging you, because that's the key thing. If I challenge you without judging you, it helps you to grow. If I just judge you and then challenge you, now you're not gonna grow. We're gonna be in constant battle constantly. And that's what we do on the show, and that's what I'm hopefully trying to do with America by switching these, having these conversations that are gonna switch perspectives.

Well, I think also what you do is you don't force the conversation to the surface immediately. That is something that maybe, I think with the police officer, Corey was the police officer, excuse me? With that episode, it's very much upfront because of, you know, who he is, because of the MAGA hat, and because of the conversation that you guys have in the car. But often it's so much about internal change and attacking what they fear in a different way that hopefully that permeates into the rest of their life and changes their political outlook on things. But you don't go into the conversations and going into the episodes going like, hey, he's going to change how you look, he's going to change your house. Who'd you vote for? You know, not at all.

Not at all. Yeah. Again, Listen better, live better. I truly believe that. So for me, I ask the most questions out of all the guys. If Jonathan was here, he, he makes a joke with him. He's always like, on one end of the spectrum, he talks the most, and he's the funniest guy in the world, face of this earth. And then I ask the most questions because I'm always like, I just got it. I got to know more about you before I can really try to figure out what has been blocking you. And once you get to that, you then can figure out how this one shift could potentially domino and affect so many other things. How it could affect your relationships with your co-workers, with your family, with your kids when you're making a vote. And I think that's what's important for what I do. And we've come across every single one, from Tom Jackson to Corey to— I mean, all of them who have just constantly contacted me and said, there's a shift now in the way I perceive the world.

That makes me happy because, you know, I recognize Corey. Very much like, you know, where I'm from and people that I grew up with, members of my family, very much like Cory. And the thing that drives me crazy about a person like Cory in the episode is a person who takes themselves for granted, so therefore takes their family for granted. And their wife and their kids are doing all of these things to prop this man up, but the man is very entitled and takes a lot for granted because of the position that they've been given. And I feel like by forcing him to think a little bit more about how he looks, to create a certain kind of confidence, you forced him to sort of take a look at his family and appreciate them a little bit better.

100%. And he does now. He's one of the most exceptional fathers I've ever— he sends us messages and photos of the things that he's doing for his wife and his kids now. And I think as a culture, we also tell men that it's okay for them to check out, and that's a problem. We've been doing that for— yeah, we've been doing it for years after years, and it's enough with that. It's time. As a single father who raises my children by himself, I always say— I mean, my son's mother I love her and she does interact, but they're in my home and I'm constantly the one parenting. And I say to other men, you don't have an opportunity anymore to say that because I work, that that's my excuse to not be available emotionally or physically for my family or my partner. No longer. Enough is enough with that. No longer can you say, because society told me that I can check out on Sundays, that's my free day, that it's okay for you to do these things. Not happening. It's not going to happen anymore. And as the show, we all as 5 men are like, we're gonna stop that behavior. And Cory's a prime example of that. We said, no more. You think it's okay that you wanted this basement? Like, literally, we went there to fix over his basement. And we all huddled outside, and Bobby was like, I hope you all agree with me, but I'm going to— I'm not going to fix his basement. And we were like, in agreeance, get his ass upstairs. And it's each of those steps that help them to become a holistic person.

My partner, when we were watching it, and it wasn't even during the Corey episode, it was during another episode with a guy, she said, male culture is so oppressive, and this is a fantastic way to combat that. And like, you know, I know you do women sometimes, but it's very— so much of the show is about pulling men out of the shell. And you just said this, I'm really repeating you, pulling men out of the shell that they think it's either okay to be in or that they have to be in because they've been told so long to hold back on their feelings or hold back on the, the affection that you show people and how you live your life and caring about how you look. And you're taking men to like get mani-pedis and being like, no, this is a great— it's really fun to get a mani-pedi. Isn't this great?

It is really fun to get a mani-pedi.

And it's also really fun to show emotion and to be open.

Yeah, yeah, makes you a better person.

I agree. Let's get some questions from the audience. Yes. Put it right here.

Hi. Hey.

Thank you for taking my question, and thank you so much for being here. And thank you. Thank you both.

Thank you.

I didn't do anything. This guy.

I am from the Deep South, and so I just want to recognize the amount of visibility that is changing because of this show and how visible we are as a queer community. And how happy that makes me. Also, my second part of that question is, is there something happening internationally? Because not only are the members of the Fab Five from the US, there's some international stuff happening. So I was wondering if there's any work to do anything internationally or support internationally as well.

Yeah, actually, out of the five of us, I actually work with an organization called OutRight International, which is an international LGBT human rights organization. I sit on the board. We just worked at the UN last year. We'll be working at the UN again this year. We bring activists, LGBTQ activists from around the country, help them meet with their UN delegates so that we can advocate for change in their own communities. For me, it's important to make sure, as the culture expert, to make sure that these people have the tools to know how to express themselves to individuals who have the power, but also to support them and put them in rooms that I now have access to. And so that's a big priority of mine. I think it's important. We have just traveled to Sydney, Australia. We went to Australia, went to London, and while I was there, I was trying to figure out who— what government officials that I could meet with, because it's important to make sure, again, with the access I have, that I recognize it and I go into these spaces and say, You might not want to talk to this queer person, but you are available to me because you like my show. So since you're available to me, I'm going to tell you what they need and bring them in so they can also share it with you. So it is important to us. Yeah.

Next question. Right here.

Hi.

Hi, Karamo.

How you doing?

Good, thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your time. One of the things I really love about Queer Eye is the way that it looks at well-being in a very holistic way. Realistic way. And I think you in particular are so amazing at kind of identifying the root cause of someone's discontent before thinking about how to treat the symptoms.

Um, so much better put than me. I really feel like I'd rather have you sit here. Thank you.

So with that said, I'd love to hear what you'd like to see change in the way that mental health care is dealt with in the United States and even globally.

Oh, mental health care is a big conversation for me. I mean, before I got on television, I was a social worker and a psychotherapist, and so mental health has has been something important. I actually started an organization to support people affected by HIV, but by focusing on their mental health. When you look in the media, we have so many celebrities that are committing suicide. When you just look at the suicide numbers period, for LGBT youth, for LGBT seniors, for people in general, it's a problem. For me, I'm trying to shift the conversation. We always talk about our physical fitness, and it's something that we're proud to talk about. You know, I'm gonna lose 30 pounds this week, girl. You know, I've started this, I've started that. But no one will go to their job and say, look, this is my mental health calendar, this is what I'm going to do for my mental health for the next 30 days. And for me, it's about making sure that people know that that's okay to say. It's okay to say that I need to shift, I need to take care of my mental health just the same way that I would go to the gym and spend 2 hours in the gym each day. And But the conversation starts with us of giving people, like my— like Jonathan would say, give them permission. You know, who's going to give you permission? It's being in the spaces you're in to say it's okay if you need to take a mental health day. It's okay if you want to spend the next 30 days working on your mental health. And if you don't have the tools, here are some tools for you. And so on my social media at karamobrown.com, if you want to go there, you know, my Instagram, I actually do something called Hey Friend. Friends. And again, I call everyone friends because I believe we need to connect, but also I'm trying to give advice in that way so that people can start to unconsciously get little nuggets that will be put into their, their, you know, their subconscious that will help them with their mental health. Because we have to feel empowered, and I don't think enough times we feel empowered to work on our mental health, and that's what's killing us.

Yeah, and there is that— there is still the stigma around talking about mental health with co-workers or anything else, and the idea I need to take 20 minutes out of the day to meditate or something, or I need to take— or I was at therapy today and this is— people say, what did you do this morning? It's like, oh, I went to therapy and this is what we talked about, if you want to talk about it. And everyone would still kind of back up a little bit, whereas we should have the space to just openly discuss going to therapy and working on it in the way that I would discuss going running 7 miles this morning.

Exactly. And I think it just needs to be a shift in the culture. Yeah, it's work that you're doing on yourself, you know. I always tell somebody, if, um, on top of of the analogy of like, think about your physical health and your mental health. If you had a gash on your arm, a big cut, you would tend to that cut every single day. You would not just leave it alone and be like, oh, it's going to heal on its own. I'll pretend it's not there. And when you went around people, they would all say, oh my gosh, what is going on with your cut? How can I help you? Why is it culture when somebody is cut in their mental state that we don't say the same thing of like, You should focus on that. Oh my gosh, how are you doing? We don't do it until it's too late. And I think we just have to, as another generation coming up, change and make a shift where we start to say it's important to ask people and check in with them. How's your mental health state? How are you doing? What's going on? And don't let them give you the, I'm fine, I'm okay, because that's the default answer that we've been trained as a culture. You're not supposed to give people too much of your information because then you sound needy, you sound this, you sound whiny. You know, like, "Oh, did I really— I didn't really— they didn't really want all that information." You start being neurotic. And it's like, no, you're not neurotic. Like, ask people how they're feeling and don't let them get away with it. Because I've noticed that in my life, when I pressure someone about their true feelings, people are so ready to finally just share that they open up. But no one's giving them a space to do that. So in your own spaces, even if you don't want to do it with everyone, start with one person. And say, you know what, this week, I'm gonna just make sure that I check on your mental health the entire week. And then what will happen is that will give them the encouragement to know that maybe next week, they can come to you. And maybe that will tell them that they can go to someone else. And it just starts becoming this domino effect.

Quick question about the production of the show. Bad segue, no segue here whatsoever. No worries. Has there been a hero that you, that the, of you haven't been able to work with or change? Has there been someone that you started the process with and there was a realization that it wasn't going to work?

No one. Not one single person. Because the beauty of having 5 of us is that you always have somebody to lean on. And so if my strength is not working, you have Tan's strength. You have Antoni's strength. You have Jonathan's, Bobby's strength. And that's the beauty of it. It's like we're a family. And the reason we were on the roof watching RuPaul and checking in with each other is because if one of us was having an issue, it would say, "Okay, I don't know what I'm doing here. What do you think I can break through?" You know what I mean? He's resistant to this haircut. He's resistant to me cutting off his beard. He's resistant to me opening up. He's resistant to me changing his home. We would say, "Well, maybe you should try this. Try this." And so, there was never one person that we ever thought that we couldn't help. And as we talked about briefly backstage, you know, I've already started, you know, putting in producers' ears that if we do get a third season— let's pray that we get a third season because we really like the show.

Um, there's no way you're not getting a third season. Craziest thing on the part of Netflix to be like, oh hey, this super successful show that everybody loves, we're not gonna—

listen, my ego will not let me think that, that— because, you know, I'm, I'm gonna come from the old school, pie in the face. I'm like, you know, I start telling people, oh yeah, third season, of course, we're a hit. And then you're like, oh, no third season.

So as much as you're conscious of your well-being and your mental health, you still say You suffer from the same thing that every entertainer suffers from.

Of course.

They're going to pull the fucking rug out from under me whenever they get the chance.

Exactly, exactly. But I've already started putting bugs in their ear that if we get a third season, I do want us to be challenged even more. So I want to start working with people who are living with disabilities. I want to start working with the deaf and hard of hearing community. And I want these communities to be seen more. I want to work with people with different body types. I want to work with people who have maybe possibly said they were depressed or attempted suicide or thought about or had addiction issues. Because I think with the reach of Netflix, it would be so great. Obviously you can't tell every story, but just like Skyler, it's rare when we see trans men on television. We usually see trans women. So we finally got to see a trans man experience. Does he represent every trans man? No. Could we do a season full of trans men? Of course we could. But the fact that we had that gave someone at home a little bit to say, I see myself now, I understand their experience. And I don't think we do that with people who are living with disabilities. I don't think we do that with the deaf and hard of hearing community. I think they're sort of like an afterthought. And for me, that's a bother. I don't like that. I think that as a culture, we need to start paying attention. If you give me 5 seconds, can I share what I shared with you back there? Yes, of course. So I just had an issue with the hotel I'm staying in right now because they checked me into a handicap accessible room. And I went back downstairs and I was like, hey, can I switch rooms? They were like, oh, why, you don't like it? And I was like, no, the room's fine. But if someone who has a disability or is handicapped comes in, I shouldn't be in their room. It should be available for them. And they were like, well, no one's going to check in like that. And I was like, problem. You don't know who's going to check in. You need to check in. And you need to leave it available. And I think about that too when I'm going in the restroom with my guy friends, and they immediately will go to the last stall because they're like, it gives me the most space or the most privacy. And they're like, "Stop, that's for somebody who might have a disability." And I'm just like, I think it's small changes like that. Even on my Instagram, I've started doing captioning. And these are not things I'm gloating about myself. I'm saying that I'm hoping that people can see that I'm making a shift in myself so that they can start to try to make a shift in ourselves. Because again, there's so many communities that we think of as afterthoughts that are human beings that need the same attention and love that we all expect.

Next question.

Hello. Hi.

Hi. Thank you for coming.

Thank you for being here.

So you talked a bit about the Corey episode where the producer sort of created that prank. And then, of course, you were able to have the conversation with him later. It was sort of a segue.

And the cop curtsied when they pulled you over. He did. He did curtsy, which kind of made everything OK as a viewer.

Yeah.

Sorry.

No, it's fine. But then, of course, in another episode later, there's sort of intense conversation about the man's religion, and he is asked, of course, well, how do you feel then, coming from such a religious background, about, you know, the LGBT community? And there's this moment where it seemed like he wasn't sure how to answer, and it was very— there's this very intense scene. And it's just sort of, how do you know when to sort of have these conversations that get very deeply political and make the person uncomfortable when, of course, you don't know how they're going to answer?

So, um, that's a really great question. For us, there's first of all the safety of being in a production setting, and so we know that if there's anything that ever happens, there's a team around. But for many people in the world, and they don't have that comfort of knowing that if they try to approach a situation that they're going to be safe, and I think that's really important to acknowledge. And but I do encourage people as they're having the hard conversations to go in with listening first. Because if you listen, you can also gauge where someone's comfort level is. And I believe if you can meet someone where they're at, you can start to grow together and unconsciously get them to a place where you need them to be at. So even in that conversation about religion, prior to Bobby having the conversation with— his name was Bobby Camp, but Bobby Burke had a conversation with him about the religion. I had a conversation with him, and it got cut out because all of our scenes don't make it. And it got cut out because I was taking him to go to a job interview because I realized that part of his self-esteem and well-being issues were the fact that he felt like he couldn't provide for himself and that he was drowning. And during that conversation, because of the fact that I have a good relationship with Christianity, I'm one of those rare queer people that is like, I didn't have the issue where the church told me that I was bad, that I can still reconcile my relationship with religion and with God.

Is this Tammy's son?

No, no, this is Bobby you're talking about. Yeah. But even there. And so I— No, no worries. And so for him, I started the conversation and I could see that me relating to him and saying we both see eye to eye made him feel very comfortable. And I picked up certain things from him that I realized would allow him to then have a harder conversation with Bobby, who was treated badly by the church. And so Bobby and I had a conversation prior and I said, Bobby, We had a conversation. He's open to it. He's ready to talk. These are the things that you might want to lead in with to meet him where he's at and then show him. Use I statements. I statements help people not to feel as if you're attacking them. Just trying to give you all little nuggets here. And so I said, Bobby, use your I statements, you know. And so Bobby was like, when I was in church, this is what happened to me. Because then it takes it away that I'm attacking you. I'm telling you my experience. And the thing is that my feelings are valid, so unless you're just a really bad person, you're going to not acknowledge my feelings. And so it was sort of a tag team with that. And so that's how we sort of know when we can have these conversations, and that's how I'd also encourage people in their own lives to have these conversations with people.

I think we have time for one more.

Hi, I'm back here.

Hi.

First of all, thank you for what you said about awareness within the communities of people with disabilities. My sister's autistic, and invisibility is like a huge problem. So thank you.

You're welcome.

Um, my question is actually, this season you did somebody that's kind of younger, like closer to my age, and one of the things that you always talk about is like getting to the root of what is stopping somebody from succeeding or what is blocking them or their obstacle. And my question is, what should you do if you're not sure where you should succeed if you're like feeling not blocked, just a little lost?

I love that question. Curiosity. For some reason, after the 3rd grade, we start to make curiosity a bad word. You know, we no longer— and curiosity and creativity. It's like we tell children to go outside, explore, and then as they start to grow up, we start to tell them, don't turn that corner because something bad's gonna happen. Don't do this because something bad's gonna happen. And it starts to block us. And then you go into middle school and high school, and, and, and the culture of the of high school and, you know, school period starts to tell you, you have to find a clique. You can't explore all of them. You can't be in band and in arts and in sports and all these things. You need to find your group so that you can feel safe. And what that does is starts to build these walls up and starts to block us. And so what I've noticed, because I have an 18-year-old who I'm raising and my other son is 21, that they had those same issues. And for me as their parent, I would constantly have to say, I would say, "It's okay to be curious." And so anytime they would say they were curious about something, no matter what it was, I would say, "It's okay," and I would applaud them for that curiosity. And eventually they would start to feel like, "Oh, it's okay to be curious." So as you're on your journey, I want you to start tomorrow. If something comes up that you're curious about, go after it. Spend a day researching it. Spend a day looking at it. Find people who are also in it, because that's how you find what you're passionate about. And your life is. But also know that through that curiosity, you might find something, and in another week or two, it might change. And that's okay, because you're on your own journey. And while you're on this journey, no one can dictate what you are and who you are and what you're going to eventually love to do. So just be okay with that.

Love it. Give him a round of applause for that, guys.

I don't want to leave you all. Who are you?

Oh, congratulations. I love the show so much. I really think you're doing important work.

Thank you.

And it's just one of those things that it's shocking that this is the important work, you know? I think no one expected it, and we're so happy to have it. So congratulations. I can't wait for season 3. I know it's gonna happen.

Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed.

It's gonna happen. Fingers crossed. Karamo Brown, everybody. Let's hear it.