US: Jonathan Van Ness of ‘Queer Eye’ Comes Out

Jonathan Van Ness was having a late breakfast at the Empire Diner, around the corner from his one-bedroom apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.

Seated in a window booth, he was serving what he calls his “16th-century Jesus” look: Hollywood-starlet tresses, a mustache à la a Super Mario villain and fingernails painted with cartoon depictions from the 1996 film “The First Wives Club.”

But Mr. Van Ness was not feeling his normal gorgeous self, the boisterous “Yass queen” merman that fans of “Queer Eye” adore. He was hung over. And no, it wasn’t from partying too much. It was a “vulnerability hangover,” to use a term coined by Brené Brown, a TED Talk-famous researcher, to describe feelings of dread after being forthcoming.

“I’ve had nightmares every night for the past three months because I’m scared to be this vulnerable with people,” Mr. Van Ness said.

For much of the summer, Mr. Van Ness, 32, has been mentally preparing himself for the release of his piercing memoir, “Over the Top,” on Sept. 24, in which a different image of Mr. Van Ness unspools with remarkable transparency.

Subtitled a “Raw Journey to Self-Love,” the book doesn’t so much explode as offer psychological insight into the hirsute gay fairy godmother in heels or, as he puts it, “the effervescent, gregarious majestic center-part-blow-dry cotton-candy figure-skating queen” that he portrays on “Queer Eye.”

“It’s hard for me to be as open as I want to be when there are certain things I haven’t shared publicly,” he said. He cracked his knuckles as he fidgeted from nerves. “These are issues that need to be talked about.” Read more via New York Times