Bobby Berk is breaking down his earnings from his six-year stint on Queer Eye.
“The first two seasons, I definitely lost money being on the show,” Berk, 43, claimed on the Wednesday, June 25, episode of the “Networth and Chill” podcast. “They were paying us basically nothing. The amount of money that I was losing from not running my company and being gone, because we had to move away.
Berk noted that he was away from his company for five months and then was on “constant press tours,” which he called “great.”
“Seasons 3 and 4, I probably broke even,” he said. “To be frank, they never really paid us well, compared to what they pay scripted stars. I mean, we made a single-digit percentage.”
Berk, however, noted that there was an upside to appearing on the Netflix series.
“Obviously, what it did was open up doors for working with brands, working with companies, things like that,” he said. “I remember over the years, fans would get annoyed with the Fab Five because we were often promoting brands, promoting companies, doing brand partnerships. They’re like, ‘So sick of this!’ And we’re like, ‘Well, girl, we don’t make money off the show. This is our form of income. How do you think we continue to do the show?'”
Now that it’s all said and done, Berk admitted that the exposure was “absolutely” worth it. Berk announced his exit from Queer Eye in November 2023.
“It’s with a heavy heart that I announce that season 8 will be my final season on Queer Eye,” he wrote via Instagram at the time. “It’s not been an easy decision to be at peace with, but a necessary one. Although my journey with Queer Eye is over, my journey with you is not. You will be seeing more of me very soon.”
Days after the upload, a source exclusively told Us Weekly that Berk’s exit was “because he wasn’t vibing with the cast.” The insider added, “There were many challenges with scheduling [and] there was a loss of interest from Bobby filming the show. The network and the cast thought it was time to bring in fresh blood. His heart was not in it, and the rest of the cast started to resent him because of that.”
A separate source claimed to Us that Berk “was not asked to leave” and the “decision was amicable.”
Months later, Berk shared an update on how he’s doing after his departure. “I’m feeling great,” he exclusively told Us in May. “I had a really great experience for seven years. And you know, for me, it was just time to move on to other things.”
He continued, “I had made peace with that at the end of New Orleans two years ago because we all thought that was the end and I started working on other projects.”
