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Queer Eye’s Antoni Porowski on being single: I hate being alone

The Netflix show’s food expert has also talked about being uncomfortable sharing personal details on the programme.
The Netflix show’s food expert has also talked about being uncomfortable sharing personal details on the programme. The Netflix show’s food expert has also talked about being uncomfortable sharing personal details on the programme.

Queer Eye star Antoni Porowski has said he hates being alone because he is “pathologically co-dependent”, but that he is currently single.

The Canadian TV personality and chef said that since rising to fame as the food and wine expert on Netflix’s makeover and life overhaul series last year, he now finds himself surrounded by people all day, before being left alone in the evenings, which is “terrifying”.

Speaking to Jessie Ware on her Table Manners podcast, Porowski said: “I’m somebody who is pathologically co-dependent.

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“I’ve always lost myself in relationships, that’s like the person I am.

“I tend to lose my identity and I have abandonment issues, so I really try to make sure the person loves me and never leaves me.

“I’m learning to be independent. I think especially with the life I have now, I’m surrounded by people all the time… You have these crazy environments and then at the end of the day you’re left with yourself, and that’s a terrifying thing for me because I love people.

“But at the same time being with myself is the most uncomfortable thing… I hate being on my own.”

The TV star also said that he surprised himself in an episode in Queer Eye’s fourth series, when he opened up to one of the makeover subjects about his strained relationship with his mother.

Antoni Porowski with Wanda Winters
Antoni Porowski with Wanda Winters Antoni Porowski with Wanda Winters in the Queer Eye episode How Wanda Got Her Groove Back (Netflix) (Christopher Smith/Netflix/Christopher Smith/Netflix)

In the episode How Wanda Got Her Groove Back about tough-skinned drill-team leader Wanda Winters, who had avoided telling her adult daughters that she loved them, Porowski likened her to his own mother in an emotionally-charged scene.

Porowski told Ware: “When I started the show there were certain things I told myself I was never going to talk about.

“The first one being I wasn’t going to talk about fluidity – it was just assumed that I was gay, and just like most of my life people just assumed I was straight.

“So when I booked the show I was like, this is an unscripted show… I’ve been auditioning as a very unsuccessful actor for a decade while I was working in restaurants, so being on an unscripted show you really just pour your life out and you’re asked to be sort of intimate and have conversations with perfect strangers, that was something that made me really uncomfortable.

Queer Eye
Queer Eye The cast of Queer Eye (Netflix)

“I told myself that I’m like not going to talk about the gay thing or my complicated family, but what I realised very quickly was, if we expect these people to open up about their lives with five complete strangers, you have to be willing to do the same, it has to be a conversation.”

Porowski is one fifth of the Queer Eye team alongside hairstylist Jonathan Van Ness, culture guru Karamo Brown, fashion expert Tan France and home designer Bobby Berk.

The Emmy-winning show is a reboot of the 2003 series Queer Eye For The Straight Guy.

Jessie Ware’s Table Manners podcast returns for its eighth season with Porowski as the first guest. The episode will be available from 6am on Wednesday.