“Queer Eye” star Karamo Brown was notably absent from Tuesday’s “CBS Mornings” live interview with the full cast as they promoted the release of the series’ 10th and final season, citing a need to prioritize his mental health.

Roughly an hour before the interview, Brown’s assistant informed “CBS Mornings” that the cast member wouldn’t be joining the on-set interview due to mental health concerns and, in part, because he was worried about being bullied.

In a statement released to “CBS Mornings” explaining his absence, Brown said, “Thank you to everyone around the world for welcoming me into their homes for 10 seasons. Season 10 is amazing and I know you will fall in love with the deserving people we helped.”

It continued, “Though the show is ending, I hope everyone remembers the main theme I have tried to teach them over the past decade, which is to focus on and to protect their mental health/peace from people or a world who seek to destroy it; which is why I can’t be there today. Thank you to the crew for being the best in business and the executives for believing in me. 10 Seasons, I’m truly humbled.”

Brown is part of the Fab Five, which includes Tan France, Jonathan Van Ness, Antoni Porowski and Jeremiah Brent, who joined the cast on season nine of the show. Brent replaced interior designer Bobby Berk, who left the show after eight seasons.

“Queer Eye” cast addresses Brown’s absence

Porowski said “surprise is a fair understatement,” referring to Brown’s absence after listening to “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King read his statement.

“I will say our ‘Queer Eye’ family, we have been doing this for almost a decade, which is pretty wild to believe, and families are complicated. We’re definitely not excluded from that,” Porowski said. 

Van Ness said he’s honored to have learned from Brown during their time together on the show.

“He has taught people to center what they need and I’m actually really proud of him. Center what you need. Do the things you need to take care of you. I’d be lying if I didn’t feel like that sometimes,” Van Ness said. “And so, I think it’s really beautiful, and I think we do need to center what is best for us sometimes and my hat off to him for doing that today.”

Brent called his experience with the group transformative, saying, “I have felt safe and supported by the people up here. I have loved every second of this thing and I’m so excited that we get to do this and share this next season because the show really is just about highlighting the best of humanity.”

10th and final season

In the very first episode of the series, France said they were working toward acceptance, but as the show comes to a close, he revealed he isn’t sure that’s happened yet.

“I would love to believe that we have come around to that, but as we’ve seen, especially over the last year or so, that hasn’t been the case here in particular in the U.S. I pray we will continue to fight for acceptance but it is not just ours,” France said. “It is our entire nation’s responsibility at this point to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves.”

But the cast members agreed the show has had a massive impact on their lives.

“It has really given me hope for what this country has been and can be again,” France said. “It helps me to understand the way our country operates through the heroes that we’ve helped.”

“It’s just opened my eyes to so much,” Van Ness added, reflecting on his time on the series. “At the end of the day people want to be safe. They want to be loved and accepted by their family. Sometimes that’s not possible so they have a chosen family around them. I think we are so much more similar than we are different.”

For Porowski, “Queer Eye” has changed him as a person as he looks at future projects. 

“I think it has for all us in how we want to, the type of stories that we want to tell and even more importantly, other people, hopefully it inspires them to kind of push towards embracing diversity,” he said.