I’m Karamo and my last meal would be, Curry goat with white rice, plantains, “plantins,” as we call ’em, and sweet corn drink, a five-tier lasagna, and spinach strawberry salad, fried chicken with sweet potato mash, and broccoli with cheese, then rice krispie treats, and a bowl of Skittles, Starburst, Gummy Worms, and Gummy Bears for dessert. Every person has exactly two things in common, we all gotta eat and we’re all gonna die. Today we’re joined by culture expert from Netflix’s smash hit, “Queer Eye” whose seventh season drops on May 12th. He also hosts “The Karamo Show”. Karamo, welcome man, thanks for doing it! What’s up! I’m good! Thank you, I’m glad to be here. I wanna ask about the importance of food on “Queer Eye” because you’re not the food guy- No- Obviously. But, there was a meme going around a while ago that like Karamo comes in, he exercises people’s biggest emotional demons, he changes their life, he makes them cry. Bobby is building a house from scratch, blood, sweat, and tears. Antoni’s making guacamole. But can you tell me about the importance of food? Listen! Y’all don’t underestimate my boy with what he’s does in that kitchen. I’m the biggest apologist for Antoni ’cause I agree, I’m a food guy! Seriously. I’m the one who by the way, always ruins his scenes because I go in, and like eat half of the things that he’s cooking. But what he does is he gives people the confidence, like myself, who don’t have good diets, this opportunity to understand that food can be fun, can be sexy, but could also nourish your body and give you the energy you need. And that’s a skill because if you come into my kitchen, it is trash. It is full trash! You don’t want- What do you mean? What kind of stuff are you cooking? Nothing you want to eat. Like I’m looking at your body, nothing you want to eat. Like- I don’t know, man- It is like take-out- I had Pop-tarts for breakfast. It is like… My fridge looks like I have, I do have kids, but my kids are older now, my fridge looks like my kids are still seven and live with me. You gotta just start telling people that you got a seven year old at home. If anybody criticizes you, you’ll be like, “Nah, the Gushers, that’s for little Johnny, Jackie.” Look at that. “He loves gushers.” You know what? All right, done. Lying is good. Done! Lying is good! We have our third thing we’re gonna dissect on our light lunch! I’m just counting them up right now! You said, “do things that you hate-” Yeah, pain is good. “Pain is good because?” Oh, because you hate yourself- You hate yourself. That’s right, that’s right, that’s right. Then you also said, “love needs to be earned.” Love needs to be earned. Which is not good. So, don’t worry, I’m collecting, I am collecting all of this in my mind for the end of this interview, okay? If “Queer Eye” needs an anti Karamo, can I just come in? I think it’ll be, your message will be stronger if I just come in and I’m saying the opposite. Exactly what I say, yes! All right Karamo, for the first course, we got Jamaican curry goat, white rice, “plantins,” as you would say, and then we got the sweet corn drink which is something that none of us had ever heard of. And I’m so glad that I have heard of it now! I’m glad. This is one of my favorite dishes. If my mother knows that I’m feeling down, this is what you cook. This is what I’ll eat constantly. My best friend will come over to the house and I’m constantly ordering curry goat, curry goat, curry goat, curry goat. But I want to make sure before we have this, you just say a couple of Jamaican words for me since you’ve never had a Jamaican on this show before. Nobody can clip this out of context and get me canceled- No, I’m not gonna ever, I’m not gonna say anything that’s ever gonna get you canceled! Please. So, you just say “Wah Gwan.” Wah Gwan? Yeah. What does Wah Gwan mean? “Hi, how you doing?” Oh, just like, “Ay, Wah Gwan!” Wah Gwan! There you go. There it is! “Ready for eat!” Ready for eat. Ready for eat! Wah Gwan, that’s it. That’s all it takes. Wah Gwan, ready for eat! Wah Gwan, we’re ready for eat? Let’s do it! All right. There’s like some weird fantasy thing going on in my head right now, knowing that I’m sitting where Tom Hanks sat. I was wondering why you smelled the seat before you sat down. I did! It was him! Well, we’re here now! Tom Hanks, oh my gosh. Him, Jonah Hill, Shemar Moore and Post Malone- I’m trying to figure out your type and I can’t, I can’t find, I’m like drawing out the graphs. Chance the Rapper. Just put all of them together and that is my ideal man. Whose legs? Jonah’s legs. I’d want him to be, like, you want him short? No, I like tall men. So, we’re gonna have Tom Hank’s height ’cause he’s tall, Jonah’s, I laugh when I think of Jonah, I’d have a lot on Jonah, but I like, I like thick Jonah. Oh, gotcha, gotcha. I mean, I love healthy Jonah. Yeah, sure. But I like thick Jonah. He seems like he’s doing great. Yeah, I want Chance’s face, I want Shemar’s arms and eyebrows on him, oh, and maybe that curly hair that he used to have back in the day- Oh, that sounds nice- And his skin tone. Yeah, so, just mix all that up- You know, Taylor’s literally gonna make that in Photoshop- You’re gonna make that Photoshop?! Yeah, Taylor gonna do that. We’ll send you- This is gonna be the ugliest man you’ve ever seen! It’s like a monkey paw wish! It’s like Frankenstein’s monster cobbled the devil! This is the ugliest man ever! You’re not gonna be attracted to any of them ever again when you see that. All right, dig in, dig in. Okay, great. Do you eat with the spoon or do you eat with your hands? So, funny part is, I was gonna do this because of Americans. I get embarrassed because I don’t eat with forks. My best friend knows this, I never eat with a fork. I believe forks should be banned. That’s like a real thing that I believe in. The Church of England, not that the churches, and a lot of their bans are technically good, but they banned forks for hundreds of years ’cause they said it was against God to not use your hands and I believe that. Well, listen, I support this. Cheers! Cheers, man. I like this. So, by the way, everyone calls these plantains, it’s “plantins.” I like how you went right to the “plantains.” “Plantains.” But get every bit of it, oh my goodness, this is so good. Do you get it all in one bite? Yes, of course. My grandmother, she hated her food to touch and I thought that was the weirdest thing. She would have to have a bowl of rice, bowl of goat- Interesting. I wanna get it all in one. You know, I’m trying to work out and look like you. Let’s do it, let’s go to the gym right after this. Not after this! Why not?! This is your dirty trick for the world, isn’t it? What? I’m starting to learn your toxic ways. It’s been five minutes! Yeah, I already- We’re on round one! I picked them up from the beginning! Damn it! You look like this, and then you feed us all this, knowing we’re not gonna go to the gym after, and then you’re gonna go to the gym and work it off. You act like it’s a trick! That’s just hard work, man! That’s what this is about. Sounds like a trick to me. That sounds like a trick to me, just to let you know. Speaking of toxic masculinity, you talk a lot about masculinity. You’ve talked about growing up with the messaging that violence is good and that’s something that a lot of people can relate to, right? Talking about being on the football field, getting- That violence is not good. Oh, sorry, that aggression is rewarded for young boys. Yes, yes, yes. Right? Like on a football field, getting rewarded for knocking people out. I’m curious, what to you, a non-toxic form of masculinity actually looks like? So, it’s something that I’ve struggled to actually eloquent. What does it look like? I think it varies for each man, and I think that’s the point. The point is, is like it shouldn’t be this binary thing where it’s like to be toxic or to be not toxic, you have to be this one way. It’s like, are you showing up and being your authentic self? Are you showing up and you’re being strong, but you’re also being vulnerable? Are you being happy but also allowed to be sad? Are you encouraging someone while also knowing when they’ve had enough and being okay with that? And so I think as long as you are showing up yourself and not hiding a piece of who you are, then that’s the perfect person. So, it’s not as simple as just being like aggression, bad, being soft and vulnerable, good for everybody all the time. But it’s like what is actually authentic to you because- Yeah. Otherwise, you’re not actually letting people in and affecting you, you’re not actually affecting them in a real way. Exactly, because if you’re gonna be aggressive and you’re gonna have somebody who who receives that in that moment, they need that aggression to feel like, “I’m pumped up.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great! But what was the communication with them before? And I don’t think there’s enough communication with young boys about what they’re feeling. We just assume, you’re young, you’re supposed to be strong, you’re supposed to go after this. And there’s not that sort of grace that sometimes we give young women when they’re younger of like, “Okay, before we start, can you…” And I think there’s a bit of toxicity in that as well because then you start to, I’ve met people who underestimate women. Yeah, 100%. And so they start to come in as little girls and like, “Oh, she can’t do that.” And it’s like, F off, she can. You know what I mean? So I think it’s about, not being toxic is about just communicating and talking and sharing. I cried on your shoulder before we even started walking in here, man. I was- That was a fake cry. We’re gonna get the real one. It was a fake cry. We’re gonna get the real one. I don’t think, place your bets now if I start crying by the end of the episode. We get 50% of the profits. I’m not gonna do it to you here. I’m not gonna do it to you here. I’m not gonna do it to you here. You’re like sneak up on me when I’m in line at the 7-Eleven? I’m just gonna start crying, trying to buy my Monster energy drink? Yes. Damn, man. The fact that you just said a “Monster energy drink,” is the reason I’m gonna make you cry. That alone is part of your toxic trait, you have to get rid of tomorrow, okay? You will pry the Monster energy drink out of my cold, dead hands, I swear. I’m just letting you know right now. Since I’ve met you, you’ve said “Old Spice” and “Monster drinks.” Okay? Yes, I am your nightmare. I am ready to be Queer Eyed Karamo. No, but I think whatever works for you works for you. Yeah. And as long as, You’re gonna try corn juice? I didn’t mean to do it unceremoniously but- No, no, it’s good! It looks really good. It’s all right. I made you uncomfortable, so the first thing we do when we’re uncomfortable is we grab something- That’s actually why I love this show. Well, I mean like, I hope you love the show, but that’s why I love doing this show is because if anything gets uncomfortable, I’m just like, “Yep.” Yep, let me go into it. I go right into the food and drink. So, with corn juice, by the way, which is the best dish ever, my mother used to make this on Sunday mornings and it would be gone within an hour with me and my siblings. You have to, it’s just, well we used to call it “condense milk,” but it’s condensed milk. Yeah, yeah. With corn. And you take a sip and you chew the corn. Oh! Bloodclaat, this is so good. Oh my God! That one sounded dirty, I ain’t saying that one. I don’t know who came up with that, but whoever did, corn cheers to you because this is good. Is there any way that we can make that messaging more attractive to young people than this new wave of like right-wing toxic male influencers? So, you’ve got guys like Andrew Tate out there who are attracting hoards of young followers. But how do we take this message and actually make, say a 15-year-old is pissed off the world, make them understand? If we really wanna start this, I think the narrative needs to shift where, you know, like that idea of like men being the head of the households, it really should be women, the head of the households. And that should be the narrative that we push, that they are the final word, not just like some joke of like, “Yo, well she gets the final word!” Yeah, yeah. It’s like, no, all women in our community should get the final word. We just have to, it’s really, I’m gonna tell you this, it’s more so within each of our communities Gay for me, straight for you. We have to have just better conversations with our friends. Yeah. So, what are you doing to have conversations with your friends is would be the question, what are you doing? Yeah. No, also this is a thing that I very actively took up in college. So I was an athlete, I was a shot put discus thrower. Yeah. And this is actually when all of the Trump locker room talk discourse took off, right? Oh, yeah! But anytime we would hear somebody use like a homophobic slur, like we would just shout them down, you know, it was me and like three dudes that we were like, “We are going to nip this shit in the bud.” But they would start doing that and we would start playing the most annoying music in the world, and just like laughing at them. So, you’d shame them? So, we’d shame them, yeah, but in like a funny way though, right? Yeah. Like because, like you said you, I’m not, one, the best educator or the best person to talk about that, but I can at least try and do a little bit of carrot and the stick to try and influence somebody’s decisions. So, I will tell you this, I think any effort that someone is trying to make to get someone to be better is great. But I also encourage all of us, I say this for myself as well, is like, think about the tactics we use because those same tactics were used on us to make us- Yeah. Feel as if we had to be more toxic. Interesting. So, I just encourage like, okay, well with that now, like now you shamed me. So, now once I’m not around you, I’m gonna double down. And I’m sure most of those guys double down. And this is in the gay community as well, I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with gay men where I’m like, “Stop encouraging this narrative of like, I don’t understand these other alphabet letters or I don’t understand trans people, I don’t understand these things,” because you’re just adding to it. And so for me, what I try to practice right now is one-on-one conversation. You’ve done an action. I’m gonna bring up the action and I’m gonna say, “I understand why you thought that was funny, but I also realize that it could be hurting somebody. Did you realize that?” Put the question back on them. It’s course one, and you got me rethinking my whole life already. God dang! I just wanted to have some goat and some corn juice, I don’t know! And talk about my grossly deformed boyfriend. Can we name him by the way? It’s up to you to name him. Tom Chan. Yeah, for Tom and Chance. Tom and Chance. Tom Chan. Tom Chan. Tom Chan. And then we have Shemar and Jonah. Well, his birth name’s Feldstein- Shajonah. So, if you wanna put Feldstein in there, I think giving him a Jewish last name- A last name? That to me. That’s representation that we need. Oh yeah, that’s a representation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Tom Chan Shemstein? Tom Chan, Tom… That’s my uncle, Tom Chan Shemstein. Tom Chan Shemstein, that’s your uncle? Yeah, he used to play basketball at the JCC. All right, Karamo, for your second course, we have a five-tiered, all-cheese lasagna. I mean there’s like three pounds of cheese in this bad boy and tomato sauce. And then as a palate cleanser, we got the spinach salad with strawberries, carrots, mixed nuts, craisins, and a lovely homemade raspberry vinaigrette which we’ had, nobody had ever made that before ’cause I think that salad dressing stopped being a thing in like 1997, but I love that you’re bringing it back. I’m bringing it back! I’m back! It’s back! You’re the culture guy. You are influencing culture right now with the raspberry vinaigrette. It’s so funny, every time someone says that, they’re like, the culture guy. I’m like, all I know about is mental health, I have no taste in anything else, like literally, I can barely dress myself in the morning, I’m bald so I don’t have to do my hair, like, only thing I can work on is this and this, anything else outside of that, like. It is funny that they put that under the umbrella of culture. I was even thinking like, I don’t know that Antoni’s poured the wine, but he is still the food and wine guy apparently. Yeah. But a lot of- It’s ’cause, yeah, from the old one. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. But this is delicious. Can I serve you some salad? Please. I like literally. This is your last meal though. You’re going to the salad during your last meal? You’re about to die tomorrow or tonight or right now, not in real life, but- We’ve talked about that and how more of that would be like, if I got in car accident after this. Are you a safe driver? No. I love speeding. Yeah, lemme tell you something. My sister, started making, had to cook for us when my mom and dad were going through the divorce. And this was like the first thing she learned how to cook, which then she taught me and the reason it’s full of cheese is because she didn’t know that you were supposed to do even amounts of layers of cheese and things. What is this called? Pasta? Pasta! That’s the one. Pasta. You are the culture guy. The culture guy, you get it now. It has almost the same ratios of mac and cheese, but it’s in lasagna form and it’s kind of beautiful. Speaking of death, what happens when you die? Oh, I pray nothing. You just wanna, do you just wanna rest? Even though I identify as a Christian, I don’t believe in hell and I don’t believe in heaven. Okay, interesting plot twist. Yeah, it’s, I’m a Christian, but I just don’t believe in those concepts of like you go somewhere else and all of a sudden like, everyone has the same amount of, or whatever the case may be. What I do believe in, and this is where like it varies as a Christian, is that, I do believe in science. And what we do know about energy is that it can neither be created nor destroyed. We know that we are just nothing but energy. Yeah. So energy has to be transferred to something. So, I believe that when we die, this energy gets transferred to something else. It could get transferred to multiple things. So, I do believe that my energy will get transferred to one thing, if I’m thinking intently on it, maybe, or it will, it’ll be a little bit of me will be in your next pasta meal, and like- I was gonna say I’m tasting a little Karamo. Yeah. That just a little, the little- That’s got real dirty, real quick. Smells like Chanel, yeah? Yeah, you’ve got real dirty, real quick. Tasting Karamo- Tasting Karamo- That’s, that’s gonna be the TikTok list. Exactly. What do you want your energy to be transmitted into? Where do you want it to live? Like a Taco Bell ice machine? No, definitely- That’s what I wanna go out as. I don’t believe that with your body, you want to be a Taco Bell? Your body doesn’t want anything to do with Taco Bell- All I wanna do is release all of this Karamo. This is a burden, I wanna release it onto Taco Bell. So, you feel this, this idea that you have to be perfect as a burden. Don’t make this about me. No, Karamo this is about you. No, no, no, I’m catching, we have it now. You are thrust into fatherhood. We understand now it’s a burden, okay. No, I hope to be thrust into like definitely wanna be a woman in my next life. I hope my energy comes in back as female energy. If you could be one woman right now, who would’ve be? Like who’s your model for the next female Karamo. Oh, that’d be good. My sister Camillia probably. Is she’s like better than Beyonce though? She’s better than Beyonce. Damn! Yeah. Can we get her on the show? Yeah, she’s pretty dope. Get down here. She’s pretty dope. She’s better than Beyonce, seriously. Though, you know, I think Beyonce and I are best friends, did I ever tell you that? No, no. No, we met eight minutes ago, Karamo. Okay, yeah, yeah, you’re right. I share a lot in a short amount of time. We both do, I have noticed. Yes. So, Beyonce and I grew up in the, you know, we’re only a year apart. We grew up in the same neighborhood, we’re year apart. So, I believe that from year three to eight we went to the same playground and we hung together and I pushed her on the swing and we like played in the sandbox. And then one day she’s gonna see me and she’s gonna be like, “Oh my gosh, you’re the kid from the playground.” I’ll be like, “Yes, Beyonce, that was me.” Take me on tour. Yeah. I’m sorry. You’re having like serious conversations. I’m talking about my ugly boyfriend, celebrity boyfriend, and Beyonce. Karamo, all this is related, this is all culture. I feel like this is all, this is all pop culture. Yeah, roughly. Yeah, okay, great. Not believing in a traditional concept of heaven and hell in certain Christian circles that you know isn’t the most mainstream idea possibly, depending on where you’re going, I suppose, also Christianity not had the best relationship with the LGBTQ community. Why is it important for you to sort of take up space in those places? I think one of my purposes is that I’m supposed to, I’ve, I am okay with being in spaces that have, have been hurtful to other people because I know my purpose is to be there to help heal that space. And so for me, I talk so freely about me being a Christian, and Christianity to me have a cantankerous relationship because obviously I started letting people into my life, I don’t use the term coming out, because the act is actually letting people in. Yeah, of course. Now, I think this undue pressure we put on LGBTQIA+ people to come out. As if they’re the problem for existing. Exactly, you know what I mean? It’s like we should feel the power to know that I can let you in when I want, and it doesn’t mean that I’m ashamed of who I am. It means that I’m respecting my boundaries and my space. And when you’ve proven to me that you are respectful and loving of who I am authentically, then of course I’m gonna let you in. And this idea of like the closet, all that stuff, I’m always like, if there is a closet, there better be a pot of gold in there for all the BS we’ve been through. And then I’m gonna burn that closet down right afterwards. So, when I was letting people into my life, Christianity was hard because there were many people that were like, no, no, no. I mean my father’s a very religious man, he’s a Rastafarian. People usually equate Rastafarian with like Bob Marley and smoking weed, but it’s not, it’s like a very deep practice of like how they get up in the morning and study the Bible. And so because of that we had, we were estranged for almost 15 to 20 years. Damn! No talking, nothing, because he couldn’t reconcile his relationship with his religion, with his relationship with his son. Do you think that was taught to him by other people? Or do you think he actually say like, got that idea from scripture? I think that inherently scripture is not bad. It’s meant to show people to be better. But then people take one sentence out of a book and then, it’s what we do today on social media on sound bites, we take one thing and then we cancel somebody. But within religion, it’s toxic because it becomes this idea that this one word means that this is wrong or they’re wrong or they should do this. And for me, it’s my journey and my purpose is to be in those spaces and say, “Okay, now that you’re focusing on this one word, let’s pull you back a little bit more. Do you see any other words? Let’s pull you back a little bit more. Do you see any other words? Now that you see more words, what are the context of those words?” And it’s important for me to be in those spaces because it works and I’ve seen it work. My father and I now, after all these years, in the past three years, have the greatest relationship because I was patient enough to be in that space to say, “Do you wanna look past this? Do you wanna grow past this?” And I’m thankful that I’m able to be in those spaces. I don’t recommend anyone else to be in those spaces because I’m not force someone else, like putting themselves in harm way. But for me, it’s part of what I’m supposed to be here to do. I guess, why you though? You know, like why do you assume that burden, does that ever get tough? Like you’re obviously entitled to your own self-care. You’re entitled to not have to take that on. I’ve been canceled before because I’ve been nice to people who politically I should not have been nice to. Yeah. I’ve relearned how to make those approaches so that people understand that I’m not crossing over to a darker side, in a sense. I’m gonna talk to you because I know for a fact for most people being black, gay, of immigrant parents, first generation American, growing up poor, but then becoming financially successful. Like I’m an anomaly to most people. Yeah. They’re like, I don’t get how this works in the world. You’re like the Shemar Moore, Tom Hanks, Jonah Hill, you know, Frankenstein monster. I understand how that works. I understand how that works. If you ever spent one night in my fantasies, in my dreams, you would understand how that conversation works. I don’t like all these zombie men that are walking around. All right Karamo for the third course, we got the southern style fried chicken. We have broccoli steamed and smothered in cheese sauce. And then we got the mashed sweet potatoes, plenty of butter, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, butter, all that stuff. I named butter twice, that was intentional. Yeah, ’cause there’s a lot of butter on it. But that’s how it’s supposed to be. So, this for me is, growing up in a Caribbean household, like I told you before, my parents are not from this country. I didn’t eat American southern dishes. So, all my black friends would always be like, “What’d you eat goat? What’d you eat an Ox, what is this?” And then like slowly I was like, “Well let me try your food.” And this was sort of the meal that I got introduced to and like made me feel like proud of my blackness, you know what I mean? ‘Cause you know it’s, it’s weird when you’re from a Caribbean household sometimes you’re not taught to appreciate Black American History. And so I learned quickly how to appreciate and love Black American History, and it started with like this meal. Please serve yourself, I’ll serve you. Man, I’m just gonna dig in on this fried chicken, this looks too good. The broccoli with cheese sauce, this is a clutch one, that I literally as I was like eating this, I was like, “Man, I’m gonna start making this at home ’cause this is lovely. Yeah, I don’t understand why people have broccoli and it does not have cheese. That’s dumb. Seems like a wasted opportunity- Stupid like- Wasted opportunity. No one wants this without cheese on it. Like that’s the dumbest thing on the face of this earth. If you could just like turn away real quick, I’m sorry to- No, you can. Everyone at home you should know, I hate hot sauce. Oh, I smell it already. Ugh! Oh, did you just, did you just put that in mouth? You gotta climb the palette, it’s called an amuse-bouche, you taught me that earlier. Oh, it stinks so bad. I’m sorry, I didn’t know, is that… You’re just being dramatic right now? No! Oh, this is real. Someone get the hot sauce away, now- No, no, no, no, you’re okay, you’re okay. You told me, you’re like “My best friend, Trey-” My best friend does it- You’re like, “Trey does it.” Trey does it, he does it. Trey’s giving me a thumbs up over there. How can you eat that? I’ll eat the hot sauce bite first, so gone, this ones gone. Why would you want that on your food? It just ruins it. The pain is good Karamo, it’s exciting, makes you feel alive. Fourth, there we go. Pain is good. He’s keeping a running tab on my toxic traits. Pain is good. This is the one part where I think Beyonce and I would not get along ’cause she keeps hot sauce in her bag. Swag. Swag. You already know, so like. Best friendship with Beyonce is over. Done, done. You were sort of thrust into fatherhood when you found out, when your child was 10 years old and it was a complete surprise to you. Do you ever find yourself like repeating toxic patterns or negative traits that your father had? So, the way I answer this question is you have to ask my son. Because my intention is always to do the best with him, I think that I’m not doing the same things, but he has his own experience. And so what I’ve learned from my own father’s toxic traits is he would talk about me and be like, “no, no, no I didn’t do that.” And I’m like- Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m like, girl, yes you did. And so for me, I’m like, I gotta talk to him, and I do have transparent conversation with my son. I’m always like, tell me, talk to me. I’m not gonna have an ego, I don’t think just because I’m your father that I can’t hear the truth. ‘Cause I think sometimes parents get stuck and they think I’m parent, I know best. No, my child is a living human being who has experiences that I might not have had that can help me to be better. And so when I talk to him, I’m like, “If you have something, talk to me. If there’s an action that I’m doing that’s not making you feel your best, tell me and like let’s talk it out.” And it’s, it’s real, like this is real. And if Jason’s watching this, you know, I love you and you can always talk to me. How honest do you think that Jason is being in those conversations? Because, you know, you’re not obviously the first parent to say talk to your kids, you know? But I know anytime my dad tried to have a frank conversation with me, right? I didn’t actually feel that there was that space that I could be honest, but how do you create that? So, I don’t say talk to your kids, I say let your kids talk to you. That’s the first thing to switch because he’s coming to me, so, I’m not sitting him down and saying, “Hey, tell me about this.” Because now there’s undue pressure. It’s about you get to express to me when you’re feeling something. And one of the other things that I’ve done since he was, I got custody of him when he was 10, is Jason has never gotten in trouble for being honest. Because I think we do a disservice to our community and to our kids and to our world when we tell people that if you’re honest, you get in trouble. If you’ve done something bad, which we’re all human beings trying to figure out how to navigate and live on this spinning rock? If you do something that you didn’t know how to do, I’m gonna make you, you’re gonna get in trouble. But it also meant like, if he messed up and he came to me and was honest, I didn’t punish his honesty. And, he knows that there’s a space that he can say whatever is his truth because I’m not, it’s not gonna be met with my anger or my disappointment or my expectations. But then there’s also things that, you know, just being a human being, like he still gets embarrassed about like he was addicted to drugs and I had no idea. And then during the pandemic, I actually found him overdosed in his apartment. Man! And, you could almost got me to cry on this one, but I’ve all cried out right now. He was laying in a pile of like cat litter, his cat litter, like that’s like, foaming from the mouth. And I thought my son was dead. Yeah. And I realized the reason that I didn’t see anything is because one of the things that I didn’t want to do that I did do is, I put him in category and I didn’t let him to be a holistic human being. So, I have two sons and he was a son that never got in trouble. Yeah. He was a son that- He was a good kid. He was a good kid. Yeah, you know, and not saying the other kid wasn’t, but it was like that idea of like, don’t worry about Jason. Oh, Jason needs a car, yeah, Jason, take the car, you don’t gotta worry, you don’t gotta worry about Jason. He’s a good kid. I used to say that proudly realizing that it was limiting him from being a human being. Yeah. And so it was like, oh, so once you did something that wasn’t the good kid, you hid that. Everything else you felt like you talked to me about, but the thing that made you not a good kid, you thought you’d be a disappointment in my eyes. And I realized like, damn, I screwed that up. So, therefore when he first experimented, he told me, and I said, “Okay, well, how was that? What did it make you feel like? You know, like this is where it leads.” But then as it got worse, he was like, well now I can’t tell dad. Yeah. And so almost him, almost losing his life has shifted our relationship as well. He went to rehab, he’s been two years sober now. It’s been good, and so, good job too, my son. Good job to you son. No, I mean that’s, that’s an incredible story. And I know you, you’ve struggled with addiction yourself. I did. That’s why I thought he could talk to me, and then I realized, oh shit, you know? Do you think him actively knowing that he was the good kid made him sort of want to rebel? Do you think he felt that undue pressure or do you think it was just you didn’t have it in your mind that he could have done that? I think there was a bit of both. And also I think like he grew up out here. The chicken is good as hell. Yes, I, shout out to the chicken. Somebody black seasoned this- No it be, it be, yeah, yeah, yeah. Be? Be? Be seasoned it, yeah. Oh, okay, okay, I can tell, okay. Yeah, good job Be. Yeah, somebody black season this good job. No, I do think there’s a bit of that pressure of like those things that you said, but also I think, part of it is, he grew up in LA, and LA is a very funny town. Like even in navigating your twenties. Yeah, you were introduced to stuff before I even knew because at 15 we, I wasn’t introduced to drugs like, you know, like the most was like we smoked a little weed and was like, oh my gosh, we are like so crazy. And that, that was what drugs was back then. That was drugs, we were wild. Like we smoke weed, we were wild. And so I’m like, “Oh, I didn’t really have those conversations, I wasn’t thinking about the environment. I was thinking about my narrow view of what my life was and how he, I put him into that instead of thinking like, okay, he’s in a different environment, so, what do I need to learn about this environment to help me be equipped to be a better parent? And so all of those things are, I think are the reason why I didn’t catch it. All right Karama, for your final course, which you did already start eating and I gotta cut did after that, we got a big old bowl of candy, we got Starburst, we got Skittles, we got gummy bears, we got gummy worms. And then we got the whole plate of homemade rice krispies. Listen, this is actually what I eat for lunch every day. This is actually the real lunch. You keep saying that, I don’t believe it man. And you keep saying you never work out, I don’t believe that either. He’s pulling up the photo evidence. No, I’m not, I’m not even doing that, I’m not even gonna do that with you right now. Are you just texting at the table? I’m calling. You’re bring on a special guest? I’m bringing on a special guest tonight. This never happened, first in the history. Barack Obama everywhere! No, that’s just a dude who looks like Barack Obama. Exactly, Hey, slut! Hey! That’s Bobby. I was gonna call you the same thing, but I don’t know you like that, hey Bobby! Tell me something, is this not the meal I eat constantly during when we’re filming? It is! Thank you. I love you. Go get your haircut, you’re beautiful. I love you. Bye! Bye! Love your work. I told you. I just facetimed I’m Bobby Berk. That guy didn’t even look like Barack Obama. He did not. Not even a little bit. Not even a little bit. I was gonna ask you if I was a hero on “Queer Eye,” where would you start with me? The thing is, is that you would never be a candidate on “Queer eye” because your hair is great. Thank you. Your skin is beautiful. I started moisturizing a week ago. Really? This is a real thing, yeah. Good job. I never used it before. Good job, it’s gonna work. So, your skin looks great, your body looks great. Your jeans fit perfectly. I saw the shoes and the no socks. Cute, when you walked in, I looked you up and down. Very great. You noticed the no socks? I didn’t even think people noticed the no socks, it’s- I observe it. Appreciate it. And so the only category that you would need help in would be mine. So, as we’re editing my guy, my super guy, can we now put a running list as well right here, all of the things that I pointed out that you have said during this show. Josh’s Toxic Traits. There we go. Do we see them right now? Do we see all of your toxic traits? Oh, yeah. Now, these are the things that we would focus on. 1, 2, 3, 4. We’d figure out how do we deal with these things? Because underneath these things there’s something going on. And I know you keep saying to me that this is not who I am, this is all jokes and fun. It’s a joke. No, it’s not, and I do- No, it’s not- No, I do use this show as like an outlet to where I can kind of say these things in a very safe space, be able to play certain things off as jokes. But then, yeah, there is a lot of truth to ’em. And I’ve been like very vulnerable about my own background and stuff, you know, to the camera, which I was gonna actually gonna ask you about having to be so vulnerable for your job. Is there almost ever too much vulnerability to where it gets performative and you feel like you’re saying stuff just to say it and not actually feeling it? No, ’cause I don’t fall into that trap. Damn! I don’t do it. And I think for you, like one of the things that I appreciate about you is like even, we’re not gonna go deep into it, is like when we were talking about your childhood and you know, you’re talking about your father and your mother’s mental illness. I think those things are important. So many people in your audience, my audience, people who watch us both are gonna be, have experience that I understand that. Yep. Let’s be real, you’re a very pretty package, and- Thank you. People could assume that your life is very, very easy because it’s very easy to look at the exterior and think like, “Oh, this guy’s already got it. He has the fiance, he has these things.” And then when you talked about your ex a little bit with me, I don’t remember if we did that on camera or not, but when you talked about your ex a little bit- They’ve heard about her. Yeah, well we talked about that, like that type of vulnerability really helps people understand that even those that you think have the package, still experience things mentally and emotionally that make them feel as if maybe they’re not worthy of something and maybe they don’t deserve something or maybe they have to fight for something even when it’s not healthy for them. And I think that you’re doing the work to grow past that, and I love that you’re sharing that with your audience. Yeah. I feel like after you- I’m being serious. I feel like after you say these things, you should go, “Boom, Queer Eyed!” And you should yell it at people. I’m just saying a catchphrase I think could sell more merch, but no, thank you so much for saying that. Boom, Queer eyed! He got me, he got me. Man, someone put him in the ring. I know. No, but thank you so much for saying that. I was sincere about that. Yeah, yeah. That wasn’t like sincerely. I deflect with humor, you’ve noticed, you’ve met me for two hours. Can we add that to the list, that would’ve been on there as well. Like, do we have room down here? I’ll move the water. Take me- I have to apologize to Taylor for making the edits difficult just because of my ADD and now we’re adding a graphics back there. Graphics. Listen- You got Venmo Taylor 20 bucks, man. I will, I will- You ready to get into the lightning round? Sure. Let’s do it man. Other than me, who’s the one person dead or alive you’d wanna share your actual last meal With. Who, I do wanna share my last meal with? Damn, that’s fucked up. Tom Chan Shemstein. Yeah, Tom Chan Shemstein. No! My, Who do I wanna share my last meal with? You can only pick one. You gotta alienate all the other people you’re saying no to. Okay, if I’m gonna be real it, it would narrow down to two people and I think one of those people would be more emotional and I do want to have my last meal having fun and really like talking, and like really having a good time reminiscing. So, the last two people that I’d want to have a meal with would be, my sister Camillia or my best friend Trey. And I’d pick my best friend Trey because I know we would like- No, it’s just ’cause he is in the room. No, it’s not. I swear to God it’s not. I would pick, I’d pick him because I know he wouldn’t like spend the last couple of hours crying like a baby. He’d be like, “Oh bitch, remember when you look like this?” And I’d be like, “Yeah girl, I remember that.” You know, so I’d like go away like smiling versus like wearing tears, because I’d have to comfort her. Yeah. Even though I was dying, I’d be like, “Girl, it’s okay. You’re gonna be all right. You’ll be fine.” And he’d be like, “Bitch, I’m not crying.” Trey, your emotions are valid, I want you to know that. Who’s got better facial hair, you or Jonathan Van Ness? Me. Yeah, definitely. Who’s your dream eulogizer at your funeral? Jonathan Van Ness. That’d be really good. Oh my God. He’ll be like, “Honey, he was a mess, like,” oh my gosh, yeah. Who plays you in the biopic about your life? Well, what we’re actually, just sold the scripted show about my life. Okay, who’s playing the biopic in you about your life. Like, so like, so someone’s gonna play it. I would hope to cast Jeremy Pope, if he’s watching this, he’s not, you know, or Lil Nas X if you’re watching, you know. Oh, hell yeah. It’s either one of them. You know, it’s on a major network you’ll see, hear about soon, but anyway. What song do you want them to play at your funeral? Like you have one more track to go out with. One more track? No, it’d probably be like, like something Beyonce. Yeah, fair. Yeah. Or Jill Scott or LeAnn Rimes. You got a couple, it’s more like a one song. Yeah. But that’s okay. Are you happy? Extremely. You seem happy? Yeah, yeah. Karamo, thank you again for joining us on Last Meals. The saying is tall, dark, and handsome, bitch, why would I not be happy? Okay, I thought those were your last words for a second. Those are my last words. Last words. Slay, deliver the last words. I’m tall, dark and handsome, bitch why would I not be happy? Put that on a damn T-shirt and I’m buying it. Okay. Bravo! Again, thank you so much, man. This is incredible, everybody, we don’t have a live studio audience, but we kind of got our own live studio audience. All right, can best friend Trey come, so the world can meet him? Best friend, Trey. Trey, Trey, come out. Best friend, Trey, where you at? Someone get him in hair and makeup. I would have my last meal with you. Aww! Come on this side. Trey, come in man, join. Hi, best friend, Trey. I actually had a whole set of questions for Trey, if you got another three hours. For real man, Trey, thank you so much. Karamo- Brother. Thank you man. We’re gonna- Pleasure. We’re gonna meet up, yeah. Please tell people where they can find you. You can find me on social media at “Karamo” on all things. You can also watch me daily, check your listings around the world on my talk show, “Karamo show.” Or you can catch me on the new season of “Queer Eye.” Coming on Netflix on May 11th or 12th. I said 12th. 12th, 12th, 12th, I don’t know! The Mythical Kitchen’s favorite way to obliterate garlic immortalized in T-shirt form. Get the Palm Heel Strike Tee now at mythical.com.