Jonathan Van Ness breaks silence on allegations of emotionally abusive behavior on Queer Eye set: 'Overwhelmingly untrue'

Jonathan Van Ness has for the first time addressed allegations of tension and toxic behavior on set of Queer Eye, including claims that he was "abusive" and had "rage issues."

The hairstylist, who is nonbinary and uses he/they/she pronouns, said on the recent episode of Jessie and Lennie Ware's Table Manners podcast that the allegations in the Rolling Stone piece weren't "really based in reality."

“There was this article that was written about Queer Eye and myself in March, but our whole Queer Eye family had first learned about this article in like December," Van Ness said.

Referencing business troubles at the time with his hair care brand, JVN Hair, Van Ness continued, “So I went from this bankruptcy to like, 'Oh, there's someone who's gonna write an investigative takedown, expose piece about you that isn't really based in reality but can certainly have a lot of things taken out of context to make you look as bad as possible. So that could drop any day now.'"

Van Ness said, “So from January to March, I was walking on eggshells being like, ‘When is this going to happen?’ And then it finally did happen."

It came during a "vulnerable" time, Van Ness said, adding of the social media reaction, “I think a lot of people were looking for a reason to hate me or looking for a reason to be like, ‘See, I always knew that they were a fake c---.'"

While Van Ness believes the article was "overwhelmingly untrue and done in bad faith," they also said they "internalized it so badly" and thought back to stressful moments in their career.

“There have obviously been times through my career where you're like stressed out or I may have been elbow deep in highlights and was like, 'No, I can't talk about that right now.' I know there were times where I could have been better," Van Ness said. "But I think also being a survivor of abuse and talking about everything that I've talked about, I internalized it so badly."

"I was like, oh my god, is it true? Am I really this bad person? It forced me to really learn how to slow down, disengage, and then really love myself," they said.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

The expose came a few months after interior design expert Bobby Berk announced his departure from the show, resulting in murmurs about tension on set. The report alleged fashion expert Tan France "campaigned" to replace Berk with newcomer Jeremiah Brent — which France has since denied — and that the Fab Five, also including food expert Antoni Porowski and culture expert Karamo Brown, were in "competition" with each other.