Netflix announced in July 2025 that Queer Eye would end after a tenth and final season, with one last stop in Washington, D.C. Seven years, hundreds of makeovers, and a genuinely staggering amount of crying, done.
Here is the thing that gets lost in the retrospectives: the lineup that started the show is not the lineup that finished it, and the most durable relationships on that cast were never the ones between the five of them. They were the ones with the animals. The pets predate the show, survived the cast changes, outlasted the tension, and in at least one case turned into an actual business. If you want a real look at who these people are, skip the reunion specials and look at who is sleeping on their couch.
The rescue dog who became a business plan
Antoni Porowski, the food guy, started fostering a rescue dog named Neon from Austin in early 2020, when production shut down for the pandemic. Fostering became keeping, which is how most of these stories go. Neon then did what any dog belonging to a television personality does, which is become slightly famous, and turns up several times on screen in later seasons.
What is more interesting is what came next. Antoni and Jonathan Van Ness went on to launch a pet food brand together, Yummers, and marketed it with a staged 24-hour Instagram romance that a lot of people believed. That is not a hobby dog. That is a dog who became a category strategy.
The seven-pet household
Jonathan Van Ness has a number of pets that most people would describe as a decision. Dogs Elton and Pablo, plus cats Larry, Liza, Tildy, Lady G, and Baggy. Seven animals.
The detail worth noticing is not the count. It is where two of them came from: JVN and Antoni adopted their shelter dogs from the same Austin rescue, Austin Pets Alive!, which is one of the largest no-kill organizations in the country. Two people on the same show, pulling from the same shelter. That is not a coincidence, that is a network effect, and it is exactly how adoption actually spreads.
The dog who did 15 years of unpaid therapy work
Karamo Brown adopted Logan, a Miniature Pinscher and Chihuahua mix, as a puppy and had him for over 15 years. He has been direct about what the dog did for him during depression.
“I just always think back to those moments of when I felt so alone and in such a dark place. It was my animal, my pet, my little family member, that was the first one encouraging me and pulling me out of that space,” Brown told People in October 2020.
Fifteen-plus years is not a celebrity pet anecdote. That is a dog who covered most of an adult life.
The design chair changed hands, and so did the dog
Bobby Berk, the original design expert, adopted Bimini, a Mini Labradoodle, with his husband Dewey Do in the summer of 2021. Bimini went everywhere with him, including on the road.
Then Berk left the show after season eight. He has said the decision came down to commitments he had made when he thought the series was finished, before Netflix renewed it in the wake of the 2023 strikes. Jeremiah Brent took over the design seat for seasons nine and ten. Brent and his husband Nate Berkus have a dog, Tucker, and, notably, went on to design an entire pet collection for PetSmart, built around the idea that pet gear does not have to be an eyesore in your living room.
So the design chair turned over, and the dog turned over with it. The job description apparently includes one.
The one without a pet
Tan France, the style expert, does not appear to be a pet parent. He is raising a human son, Ismail, with his husband Rob. We will allow it. Someone on every cast has to be the responsible one.
What’s new since this was written
The Fab Five as originally cast no longer exists. Bobby Berk exited after season eight and Jeremiah Brent replaced him for the show’s final two seasons. Netflix confirmed in July 2025 that season ten, filmed in Washington, D.C., would be the last, and Berk announced an HGTV show, Junk or Jackpot?, the following day, which prompted some public grumbling from Karamo Brown about the timing.
The pet side of the story kept growing while the show wound down. Antoni and JVN’s Yummers is a real company with real funding. Brent and Berkus’s PetSmart collection is on shelves. Whatever happened between the five of them, the animals turned out to be the part of the brand that scaled.
If you want the actionable version of all this: two of these dogs came from the same Austin shelter, one covered a man through 15 years of depression, and none of them were purchased to be content. The show is over. The dogs are still on the couch.
References
- “Why Did Bobby Berk Leave Queer Eye?” People, via AOL.
- “Bobby Berk On HGTV Show Announcement After ‘Queer Eye’ Cancellation.” Deadline, August 2025.
- “PetSmart Partners with Interior Designers Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent.” PetSmart Corporate.
- Austin Pets Alive!
