“Queer Eye has been the most amazing gift that I couldn’t have ever imagined,” says Bobby Berk, visibly emotional. “It’s been a life-changing moment. I’m leaving something that is a huge part of my life. Even though it’s my decision, it still wasn’t an easy one.”

A few days ahead of the Netflix show’s season eight premiere on January 24, Berk is at his design firm’s stunning new headquarters in Los Angeles. He’s relaxed and ready for a frank, free-ranging conversation that touches on everything from Bimini, his adorable mini labradoodle, to his first Emmy win and his close friendship with comedian Atsuko Okatsuka. Mostly, though, he’s ready to address widespread rumors about why he’s departing the beloved series after 71 episodes, and to reveal the truth about an alleged feud with his costar Tan France. “I hope this interview will help extinguish some of the speculation,” the interior design expert says. “I want people to know that Tan and I—we will be fine.”

Last November, Berk announced that the upcoming season of Queer Eye would be his last. His unexpected news left fans devastated, and prompted immediate gossip—though the real reason he’s exiting the series is understandable.

When the show began, says Berk, he and the rest of the Fab Five—fashion consultant France, culture and lifestyle coach Karamo Brown, food and wine guru Antoni Porowski, and beauty maven Jonathan Van Ness—signed a seven-cycle contract that lasted through September 2022, when they wrapped filming on two seasons in New Orleans. On the last day, “the Fab Five and the crew, we all stood there, and we took pictures and cried,” Berk says. “We thought we were done. Mentally and emotionally, I thought we all moved on. I know I did, and I started planning other things.”

But early in the fall of 2023, says Berk, Netflix decided to renew the series due to a shortage of original content caused by the dual actors and writers strikes. He and the rest of the Fab Five were offered a new contract that asked them to commit to an option of four cycles. Berk decided not to sign—and at first, he says, other members of the Fab Five were considering doing the same. (Netflix did not respond to a request for comment.)

“We’d just assumed that the show wouldn’t come back if we all didn’t come back,” he says. “I was like, I’m not going to be having FOMO ’cause the show is not going to happen. I had become at peace with it.”

Then, for reasons Berk doesn’t elaborate on, conversations were had that changed some minds. Shortly before the deadline to sign the contract, his four costars all decided to move forward with the series after all. “And with only one of us not coming back, Netflix felt [it] could recast one person,” he says.

At first, the reversal upset him. “There were definitely emotions. But each one of us had our reasons why we did what we did,” Berk says. “I can’t be mad—for a second I was.” But he didn’t reconsider his own decision, largely because he’d already started preparing for his next chapter: “All the plans that I had made when I thought we weren’t coming back, I just wasn’t willing to change those. I would have had to pump the brakes on multiple other projects that are already in process. We had mentally just prepared ourselves to move on—that’s why I left.”

His absence will have an enormous effect on Queer Eye, a reboot of the early-2000s Bravo series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. The show made a star of each member of the Fab Five, all of whom were virtually unknown when the series debuted in February 2018. Viewers are as invested in the group’s friendship as they are in the show itself, which is why many have wondered whether Berk’s departure implies that there’s a rift between him and his costars—or that he’s tired of working so much harder than the Fab Five’s other members. (The comparative difficulty of renovating an entire home in a matter of days has become a long-running joke among Queer Eye fans.)

While Berk denies the accusations for the most part—“You will have never found me quoted as saying that I have the most important job and I do the most work. All five of us are of equal importance”—he will admit to clashing with France. Last fall, eagle-eyed fans noted that Berk had stopped following France on Instagram. They’ve also noticed that Berk hasn’t been tagging France’s personal account in group Fab Five photos on that same app, even the one he posted earlier this month after the group won an Emmy for outstanding structured reality program.

“Tan and I had a moment,” Berk says. “There was a situation, and that’s between Tan and I, and it has nothing to do with the show. It was something personal that had been brewing—and nothing romantic, just to clarify that.” Instagram’s settings, by the way, are behind the lack of tags—as with many public figures, only mutual followers can tag France in images.

“Should I have unfollowed Tan? No,” Berk continues. “Maybe I should have just muted him. But that day, I was angry, and that’s the end of it. We became like siblings—and siblings are always going to fight.”

Through his spokesperson, France declined to comment.

At the Emmys ceremony, Berk adds, “we both embraced each other, and we both said congratulations. And that’s where we are right now.” Chilly as things have been, he can see a thaw on the horizon. “I will always have a very special place in my heart for him and Rob [France’s husband] and the kids. I can foresee in six months or a year, Tan and I at each other’s house being good. The Emmys was already the first bandage on that wound.”

Queer Eye’s breezy nature belies what a beast it can be to film. “It’s beautiful and amazing and heartfelt, but behind the scenes, it’s an emotionally hard show to make,” Berk says. “Queer Eye has opened up a lot of wounds—not just for me, but for my castmates too. We’ve had to open up wounds that we thought we had forgotten about and healed from, from our childhood and our past. That takes a lot out of you, to revisit those again in front of the world.”

The 42-year-old Berk has alluded to a few of those wounds onscreen. He grew up on a farm in the small, conservative city of Mount Vernon, Missouri, and left home at 15. His religious family and community were incredibly hostile to queer people: “Some person came out and they literally tried to kill him. Some guys ran him off the road one night. So I couldn’t live with this mask anymore,” says Berk. “I had to leave.”

He lived in his car, on the streets, and in a classmate’s basement until her parents discovered him. He relocated to New York in 2003 without a high school diploma and with very little money in his bank account. “When I lived in New York, there was a grocery store on 14th Street that I always had to walk to because it was the only ATM that I could find that could dispense a $10 bill,” says Berk. “I never had $20 in my account.”

Everything changed when he landed a job at Portico, a housefurnishings company. Berk worked his way up to creative director and built the company’s e-commerce division. He was running Bobby Berk Home, his own home design company, by 2006. Then, in 2017, his publicist at the time told him about a casting opportunity at Netflix. He nearly skipped the audition to go on an all-expenses-paid work trip to Spain, but ended up changing his mind at the last minute.

“Tan, Karamo, and I, we sat right next to each other on the very first day of casting and instantly had a connection,” Berk remembers. “And then with Antoni, and then the next day with Jonathan. I started a Fab Five text group between the five of us before we even could have imagined we were cast, and I feel like that’s why we got the show. Casting saw that we really, truly love each other, and we all truly had great chemistry. From the very beginning, we had a real connection.”

Berk’s charisma and design skills got him the job—but his ability to connect with makeover subjects, particularly religious ones, has been his superpower. Berk says he received an email from an Assemblies of God pastor who told him that he’d spent his life preaching “that anybody who is gay is going to hell and they need to repent,” noting that he’d “always thought it was a choice.” However, the pastor told him that watching the series had made him “realize that it’s not a choice and that you were born that way,” Berk says; he said he would “never preach that hate” in his church again. Receiving the message, Berk says, “was one of the most amazing moments in my life. [By] allowing myself to be vulnerable and allowing myself to relive that trauma, I may have had a hand in preventing that trauma for future generations."

The show’s creative team makes clear that Berk’s loss will be immensely felt. “Bobby’s personal coming-out story and his upbringing add depth to his work,” executive producer and showrunner Jennifer Lane says. “His heart always leads the way.”

“Bobby Berk not only transformed our heroes’ spaces, but also uplifted their confidence,” agrees Queer Eye creator David Collins. “He’ll always have a lasting impact on Queer Eye’s legacy.”

And the Fab Five will have a lasting impact on Berk as well.

“I will miss Jonathan’s ridiculous silliness—to the point of sometimes wanting to wring their neck. But I will miss it,” he says, laughing.

“I’ll miss Antoni’s dumb jokes where nobody else will laugh except him. He’ll make the silliest, dumbest joke, and we’re like, What?”

When it comes to Karamo, “he’s a loyal bitch,” Berk says, noting that he’ll miss that quality.

As for France? “I’ll miss Tan’s boundaries,” says Berk. “Tan loves a boundary, and that’s one of the things that I respected about him the most. Even in the very beginning, when we were filming seasons one and two, we would all hang out together every single night, all weekend long. Tan wouldn’t always, ’cause Tan needed his boundaries. Some of us didn’t have the strength to be like, ‘No, I need a break.’ Tan would be like, ‘No! This is my alone time. Don’t text me, don’t call me.’ I always respected that. I’ve actually learned a lot from him on being able to have boundaries. Sometimes the healthiest relationships are the ones with the best boundaries.”

When reached for comment, the other three members of the Fab Five respond by sharing what they, in turn, will miss the most about Berk. Van Ness cites his “passion, knowledge, and care.” Porowski shouts out “the family that the five of us made and who we became together.” Brown, as would be expected, goes deep: “Bobby brought so much to the show: his talent, his humor, and his heart. But if I had to narrow it down to one thing, [it’s] his dedication. He was fiercely dedicated to making sure that every aspect of the show, the hero’s experience, and even elements outside of the show were equally cared for and tended to. It’s that eye for detail in his work and personal life that makes him so special.”

Now that Berk is finished with Queer Eye, he says he’ll never forget the cast’s camaraderie. He hopes he’ll be remembered for showing the connection between interiors and mental health: “Your space can really transform your life,” he says. “You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to be able to hire a designer. I hope that my legacy is showing that you can democratize design. Learning how to make your space work for you can be healing for you and your family.”

Netflix has announced that the ninth season of Queer Eye will be set in Las Vegas. As the streamer searches for Berk’s replacement, he’s already bringing his detailed eye to his new projects, which he says include work both on and off camera. He’s expanding his firm, which is currently designing 45 homes simultaneously. “I want to create things, cultivate, and help discover talent that you don’t see on TV—different nationalities, different origins of people in design,” says the self-made millionaire. “It’s my era of building and developing.”

He’s still dispensing advice as well, even to whoever succeeds him on Queer Eye. “Open up your heart,” he says. “Keep an open mind. Don’t get discouraged. And have fun.” There’s one more thing too: “Be nice to my siblings!”