How Much Does The Fab Five From Queer Eye Make?

How much cash does each member of the Fab Five pull down for helping heroes sparkle on "Queer Eye"? While there's nothing on the record that confirms their current salaries, Jonathan Van Ness has reassured fans that the entire team is being paid the same amount of money — or at least they were when the show launched. "When the boys and I were cast we banded together and made sure we got paid the same thing," they told Wealth Simple in 2018. "I'm really into that part of our story. We're homies. We'd all feel so resentful if one of us was getting more or less than the others. It would create a very, like, not cool work environment."

But not every member of the cast found their take-home pay to be satisfactory. "The first two seasons I definitely lost money being on the show. They were paying us basically nothing," Bobby Berk explained during an appearance on the Your Rich BFF Podcast. He added that he was forced to take time away from his own business to shoot the show and do press tours, which compounded the problem. However, that's not why he left during Season 8 — that had more to do with Netflix, along with Berk's own sense of finality about the show. It was later disclosed that the original cast individually made $7,500 per episode during those years, which works out to roughly $60,000 per season.

The entire main cast renegotiated their salaries for Season 3. Karamo Brown later confirmed that the team made more for that year, and that he was satisfied with his takeaway pay. Karamo's respect for Tan France as the team peacemaker also probably helped ease any financial ruffles. Berk admitted that he made out slightly better as well. "Season three and four, I probably broke even," he said on Your Rich BFF, but noted that he still made a single digit percentage. Fortunately, "Queer Eye" hosts have plenty of opportunities to make up the difference in their paychecks through other ventures.

Have the Fab Five's salaries gone up since Season 3? The team hasn't commented publicly about any further raises. Regardless, several clear sources of extra revenue have always been available to the team. Each member of the Fab Five have landed endorsement deals, created brand partnerships, and generated their own side businesses. For example, Antoni Porowski built his own gourmet pet food brand called Yummers alongside Jonathan Van Ness. Van Ness, meanwhile, has launched a hair care line called JVN Hair. Karamo Brown also endorsed the PrEp pill by ViiV Healthcare — another good cause from a former MTV star who got his "Real World" gig by protesting the media giant. Most of the group promotes products, services, and businesses via Instagram and other social media. All of this valuable exposure can result in more gigs, and even more cash-rich side hustles. 

For those struggling to understand why the Fab Five would hawk products for makeup or pharmaceutical titans, Bobby Berk has an explanation. "Fans would get annoyed with the Fab Five because we were often promoting brands, promoting companies, doing brand partnerships and they were like, 'Oh, we're just so sick of this,'" he told Your Rich BFF Podcast. "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?'" That's a wise question, and one the whole cast of "Queer Eye" seems to have an answer for.