20 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Queer Eye's Karamo Brown

Karamo didn't know he had a son until his son Jason was 10 years old. He found out because he had a notice saying he didn't pay child support at his doorstop.

Turns out his girlfriend from high school had gotten pregnant without telling him and moved away. Now he's a parent to Jason, as well as his half-brother, Chris, who he also adopted.

Though he's Queer Eye's resident culture expert, he isn't wild about that title. He told Insider he would prefer it to be "therapist" or "life coach."

During the first season, he was asked to "cut all the therapy stuff " in favor of more artistic pursuits but didn't. When he watched it back, he realized they had cut down his segments by a lot. Thankfully, once the showrunners realized that people positively responded to Karamo's advice, he asked them to officially redefine his role to focus more on life advice and the rest is history.

Karamo actually decided to audition for the show too late, but his agent pitched him to the show's casting director directly. Karamo was able to make his case on the phone.

"I wanted to make sure the process felt authentic to me—the same thing I wanted for the show," Brown wrote in his book, according to Bustle. "Then came the question 'What does culture mean to you?' Without hesitation, I answered proudly, 'I am culture.'"

Karamo admitted he and Antoni didn't get along during season one, saying that a third party came in between them. But now, they're on the right track and even recorded a podcast episode about their reconciliation.

One of the most powerful scenes in Queer Eye history is when Karamo was pulled over during the third episode of the first season. Producers staged the whole thing (the cop ended up being that episode's nominator) and didn't tell anyone it was going to happen except for Bobby, according to BuzzFeed.

Though Karamo said he was scared, it ended up sparking a powerful conversation about police brutality, and he said he is glad it happened.

Prior to the show, he had a pretty impressive set of credits. According to Parents Magazine, he was a host and producer for the OWN Show, a host for HuffPost Live, a contributor to HLN/CNN, and the host of MTV’s Are You The One: Second Chances.

One look at Karamo's Instagram or of them on the show and it's clear he and Bobby Berk have a special connection. Apparently that's been the case since auditions.

"Everybody has their turn to come in and we sort of started to see this sort of bond form a little bit with Karamo and Bobby," casting director Danielle Gervais told CNN. "And then Tan kind of fell into the mix and then all of a sudden, we brought in Jonathan and then it felt like, wow, and then Antoni came in and all of a sudden it was the five of them. It was like putting together a magic puzzle."

He said that he and Bobby always make sure everyone is in check, especially when they traveled to Japan.

"We already knew this, but now it’s confirmed that Bobby and I are definitely mommy and daddy," he told AOL. "Bobby is mommy and I’m daddy, because I’m constantly talking to drivers and making sure that we [know where we're] going, and he’s always like, 'Jonathan, you left your phone behind!'"

Karamo appeared on Real World Philadelphia back in 2004. He was the first openly gay African-American in the history of reality television, according to his bio.

He told AOL that he calls his fans friends because he wants them to feel close to him.

"It’s an honor that more people know that I’m someone they can trust," he said. "On my social media, I call everyone 'friends,' because I want them to know that I’m someone they can come to at any moment. Out of the Fab Five, people actually stop me and tell me their life stories and cry on my shoulder. The other guys don’t really get that, and it’s because people say that they think they can tell me things."

Karamo graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, which was the site of a mass school shooting in 2018. He participated in the March For Our Lives and gave a poignant speech about exactly why gun control is important to him.

Karamo proposed to his longtime partner Ian Jordan last year.

He wrote a memoir earlier this year called Karamo: My Story of Embracing Purpose, Healing, and Hope and co-authored a children's book with his son coming out later this year called I Am Perfectly Designed.

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He was recently eliminated, but he competed on the most recent season of Dancing With The Stars.

He caught some heat for defending former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who also competed on DWTS with him this season, but, Karamo wasn't here for it.

"I wouldn't respond to a single person who has backlash because I don't care about what they have to say," he told Entertainment Tonight.

Karamo worked as a licensed social worker and psychotherapist for more than 10 years.

Karamo said he has an inclusion rider in his contract.

"I make sure that in my contract they must hire two to three gay African Americans to be on crew," he told A&U Magazine. "I’ve done that now on the past three shows that I’ve been on and that’s important for me."

All that advice giving has earned him an affectionate nickname from his co-stars: Karoprah.

He announced via Instagram he was going to be on the That's So Raven reboot called Raven's Home.