June 24, 2020
Karamo Brown Made Reality TV History Long Before 'Queer Eye'
Kevin Schattenkirk READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Before his star turn as part of the current "Queer Eye" Fab Five, Karamo Brown entered the realm of reality TV through one of the genre's innovators – in 2004 on MTV's "The Real World: Philadelphia."
But this wasn't any ordinary appearance, as Brown would become the first openly gay Black man to grace reality TV. But Brown hadn't initially considered the potential impact, as he explains in an interview with
It was only a year later when somebody informed Brown that, as the first gay Black man on reality TV, he was a trailblazer: "And I was like, 'Really? I thought that happened 40 million years ago!' And it just shows why representation is so important because there are still so many groups that have never been seen on television."
Elsewhere in the interview, Brown, as the culture expert on "Queer Eye," elaborates on the freedoms afforded by producers to the Fab Five in tailoring the show to their interests. Brown says, "...we don't have producers who tell us what to do... At the beginning of the week, they ask, 'What do you want to do?' And then we sort of decide how we feel we can help them and they just follow us." Such congenial collaboration undoubtedly contributes to the show's ongoing success.
Off-camera, Brown is preoccupied with the COVID-19 pandemic and fluctuating emotions of being in lockdown; the Black Lives Matter protests and the significance of the larger LGBTQ community standing in solidarity with the movement; and, on a more personal level, marrying his longtime partner.
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Kevin Schattenkirk is an ethnomusicologist and pop music aficionado.
