Karamo Brown Surprised By Fatherhood

IN A NEW MEMOIR, THE QUEER EYE STAR OPENS UP ABOUT HIS UNLIKELY PATH TO FAME AND FAMILY

- Breanne L. Heldman

“My life is a sensationalized roller coaster,” Karamo Brown says with a laugh. His new memoir, Karamo: My Story of Embracing Purpose, Healing, and Hope, details all the ups and downs—from his difficult childhood with a dad who battled addiction to success on MTV’s The Real World in 2004 to his current run as the “culture expert” on Netflix’s hit Queer Eye reboot. He also reveals his own struggles with addiction. “I was scared my life was always going to be dark,” he says. But the book’s most emotional chapters deal with his unexpected role as a dad, which began the day in 2006 when he learned, at 25, that he had a son, Jason, conceived with a high school friend when he was 15. Now 38 and in a serious relationship with Ian Jordan, a television director, Brown is 12 years sober. After years out of the limelight, working as a therapist to support Jason and a second son who joined the family in 2007, he returned to showbiz and landed the role on Queer Eye in 2017. He’s a happy man—and it was fatherhood, he says, that “saved me.” In an exclusive excerpt from his memoir he looks back on the journey that began with his first day in ninth grade at a new school, in Houston, soon after his parents had separated.
I walked to my locker, and the minute I got there, a [girl] walked up to the locker next to mine. She had the most beautiful brown eyes. I said, “My name’s Karamo. Would you like to be friends?” Nothing about me was sexually attracted to her. I was like, This is my first friend in this massive school.

He and the girl, whose name was Stephanie Brooks, became best pals.

I told Stephanie I was gay, but I don’t think she truly understood. Or maybe she didn’t believe me or care. Yet people had expectations because we spent so much time together. We decided, “Let’s just be boyfriend and girlfriend.”