Bobby Berk Talks Queer Eye Salary, Losing Money
Despite what it might seem like, reality stars are often paid an absolute pittance for their appearances on hit TV shows. Exhibit 1,000: Bobby Berk on Queer Eye.
For context, Bobby left school at 15 and worked his way up various homeware companies before launching his own business in 2006. His interior design practice followed in 2015, before Queer Eye hit three years later.
The designer announced that he was leaving the hit Netflix series in 2023, later explaining that he'd initially thought that the cast had agreed to wrap up the show beforehand. "Mentally and emotionally, I thought we all moved on. I know I did, and I started planning other things," he explained, attributing his choice to leave to not wanting to put the "brakes on multiple other projects that are already in process."
Yesterday, the Networth and Chill podcast published an interview with Bobby where he broke down his finances over the years. When asked if he "made a lot of money" doing Queer Eye, he replied, "[The] first two seasons, I definitely lost money being on the show."
"They were paying us basically nothing," he continued, noting that there was also "the amount of money that I was losing from not running my company and being gone."
"Seasons 3 and 4, I probably broke even. To be frank, they never really paid us well, compared to what they pay scripted stars. I mean, we made a single-digit percentage," the 43-year-old said.
Of course, his only income wasn't from Netflix. He added, "Obviously, what it did was open up doors for working with brands and companies. I remember over the years, fans would get annoyed with the Fab Five because we were often promoting brands, '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?'"
You can listen to the full podcast interview here.
Looking for more LGBTQ+ or Pride content? Then check out all of BuzzFeed's posts celebrating Pride 2025.
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