Overworked design chief Bobby Berk exits Queer Eye
Never fear: Bobby Berk will return for one more, final season
Aux News Queer Eye
Bobby Berk, a.k.a. the guy with the most demanding job on the show, is leaving Queer Eye after eight seasons. As the show’s design chief, Berk has long had the most labor-intensive area of expertise on the series, renovating houses, creating habitable spaces, and bulk ordering oversized general positivity posters. At the same time, Food & Wine master Anotonio Porowski teaches participants, formerly known as “the straight guy,” how to add butter to bread.
“It’s with a heavy heart that I announce that Season 8 will be my final season on Queer Eye,” Berk wrote on Instagram. “It’s not been an easy decision to be at peace with, but a necessary one. Although my journey with Queer Eye is over, my journey with you is not. You will be seeing more of me very soon.”
Berk joined the reboot six years ago along with Porowski, culture guy Karamo Brown, fashionista Tan French, and grooming great Jonathan Van Ness. For the last eight seasons, they’ve been teaching people to believe in themselves through the power of positive thinking, community engagement, and also maybe trying a volumizer. Regardless, in that time, Bobby Berk has toiled away, creating sick bachelor and bachelorette pads, single-dad playrooms, and bedrooms that give participants privacy from their parents. He could be seen in the background of Queer Eye episodes hauling lumber, painting walls, and discovering mold as JVN taught grown men that a soul patch is actually quite difficult to pull off.
Now, before we get apocalyptic about what’s going to happen when the person who does everything in the group assignment decides to leave, Queer Eye fans aren’t through with Bobby yet. He will appear in season eight for a final round of makeovers in New Orleans. Berk’s final season will stream on Netflix on January 24, 2024. That won’t be the end of the show, though. Another season, this time in Las Vegas, has already been renewed by the streamer. However, they won’t have Bobby Berk to push around anymore.
11 Comments
Good on Bobby for moving on to bigger and better things. Honestly, the show has a shelf life, and it’s probably close to reaching it (if it hasn’t surpassed it already). The “heroes” in the last couple of seasons felt very carefully focus-grouped and lacking in authenticity compared to the early seasons. Basically, there’s a lot of this type of thing:“This week our hero is Marsha, who refuses to change out of her leggings but who also runs a community project knitting sweaters for homeless cats.” And then Marsha gets a haircut and three new outfits, while Bobby and Co. build a cat shelter and Antoni prepares fruit salad for a grand re-opening party. Like, the “hero” seems like an afterthought that’s only around to get to promoting some nonprofit or community organization. There’s nothing wrong with that, but just feels more manufactured than the earlier seasons where the focus was on the people, and not on the cause that each person is devoted to.
Berk Berk Berk!
There’s the irony of a gay dude being called “Berk”.
AWWWWW BOBBERS!!!! (in my JVN voice) He will be missed but I feel him getting his own which is a great evolution for him and I am here and ready for it!
Honestly they’ll just replace him with another gay interior designer but what they should do is either drop the role or change it. The problem with Bobby’s role has always been that the rest of the goals are actionable for most folks. You could see something of yourself in the episode subject and come away with ideas and inspiration, but instead it was always like “Here’s a recipe for snack mix, talk to your old bullies and see if you learn something, here’s a haircut and for god’s sake stop wearing hockey jerseys… but also let’s spend what is easily six figures on your house for a three minute “Wow I can’t believe it’s the same living room” montage at the end.”
on the flip side i basically spend the whole episode waiting for the renovation reveal.
Hell I liked it too, but honestly it did always feel like they grafted the end of a HGTV show on to Queer Eye. The nice thing of course is that there’s no shortage of HGTV shows, so even if we lose the whole shebang you can still get your fix of renovation montages by just standing near the TV in any cafeteria or hospital waiting room.
“Anotonio” is certainly one way to spell Antoni’s name. Why get someone’s name wrong once when you get somehow manage to get it wrong in multiple ways in one fell swoop, that’s what I always say.
The one dude that does all the work on the group project was a good way to put it. The next guy should have more staff.
He could be seen in the background of Queer Eye episodes hauling lumber, painting walls, and discovering mold as JVN taught grown men that a soul patch is actually quite difficult to pull off.This is… not at all true? Nearly all of the hard work that Berk’s whole team does happens off-screen. You’ll see him in a montage staring thoughtfully at fabric swatches and shit. Jonathon Van Ness sometimes spends hours doing extremely complicated hair stuff. This is a complete fabrication of how the show works.Also his name is Tan France. Jesus fucking christ, you guys.
Yeah, but until Bobby unfollows them all on Instagram, I won’t truly believe it’s real. Between this and Antoni only inviting Tan to his bachelor party, I’m anxiously awaiting the reveal that they all secretly hate each other, like those “What Not To Wear” people.