Netflix’s Queer Eye brought back a reality TV show format from the early 2000s that promised real-life people a much-needed revamp to their lifestyle. The show’s cast members, known as the Fab Five, were a group of professionals from different spheres who called upon their various expertise to help a new person each episode. One of the members, Bobby Berk, is a highly successful interior designer who became known on the show for busying himself with giving a stranger an entirely new home in the span of a 40-minute episode.

Though he’s since departed the series, Bobby took the time during an interview last week to open up about his experience on the early seasons of the reality TV show. In a candid conversation on “Networth and Chill with Your Rich BFF,” Bobby admitted that his pay on the show was so low in its early days that he actually lost money throughout the first two seasons.

Bobby Called Netflix Out For The Low Pay

Viewers of Queer Eye will know that Bobby was a mainstay of the series for years; he was part of the original cast when the show was restarted in 2018, and he would go on to appear in a whopping eight seasons. Though there were certainly stories of drama behind the scenes of the show (including tension between the cast members), he didn’t announce his departure until the end of 2023.

Given how popular the show was, it’d be reasonable to imagine the main cast members were well compensated for their work. In reality, however, it seems that this was far from the truth. In his conversation with “Networth and Chill with Your Rich BFF,” Bobby told the podcast host that while he’d signed onto Queer Eye for the opportunity, he only realized later how poor the pay would be. He explained that stepping away from his personal interior design business actually made him lose profits:

This isn’t to say, however, that things didn’t eventually turn around for the Fab Five. Bobby explained that it was around Seasons 3 and 4 that the cast began to break even from their Netflix earnings. What’s more, he also explained that appearing on a show with such high visibility opened a lot of other doors for him in his career.

“To be frank, they never really paid us well. You know, compared to what they pay scripted stars, we made single digit percentage,” he said. “Obviously, what it did, though, was open up doors for working with brands, working with companies,” he added.

It seems like the name of the game during the early seasons of Queer Eye was taking any possible business opportunities. Bobby explained that he and the rest of the Fab Five would often feel compelled to promote companies and brands in order to earn the extra income, but that some fans would complain about them doing so.

Bobby explained how unfair it felt for fans of the show to express that they were sick of seeing the promotions:

Looking back at his experience, however, Bobby shared in the conversation that he didn’t regret staying on as a cast member for eight seasons. He emphasized how much the visibility from the show changed both his life and his career, and that he’d do it all over again if given the chance.

“It was tough the first few seasons, but the doors that it has opened for other things… I mean, you can’t pay for that type of exposure,” he shared. “We got really, really lucky to find lightning in a bottle, and the show came out, you know, right at a very defining moment in the world,” he added, likely referencing when Donald Trump took office during his first term.

Reflecting on his Queer Eye tenure, Bobby seemed to speak of it with pride. He even went so far as to call the reboot of the show a “cultural phenomenon” that he was grateful to be a part of, and he doubled down that he never regretted a second of the experience.