Because so many people seem curious about Antoniās family now, Iāve decided to compile a list of some things he has said regarding his mother/father/family or childhood in general
(Queer Eye book - Love Yourself, Love Your Life)
āWhen I was a kid in Montreal, she would prepare these really lavish meals for dozens of friends and family. She usually insisted on doing everything herself. Neither my two sisters nor I were allowed to help her in the kitchen, but I always watched. Once everything was ready but before everyone arrived, my mother and father would have a cocktail together and listen to Edith Piafās "La Vie en Rose.ā It sounds storybook romantic, I know, but my family was actually pretty dysfunctional - loud with a lot of conflict and high tension. We didnāt talk about our deeper feelings at all; you kept everything stifled inside. Food always connected us, though, no matter what.ā
"Even though in my family we kept the lid on our emotions, Iām probably more repressed than I even know.ā
āBut coming out wasnāt traumatic for me, like it was for so many peopleā¦When I told my father about my relationship, it was more about who I was spending time with than about labeling my sexual identity. He was driving me to the airport and commented that I was secretive about my life. It was funny for my father to say that because he would never pry, but I think maybe he was finally trying to come into my life on a more personal level.ā
https://www.vulture.com/2018/02/queer-eye-antoni-porowski-a-little-life.html
āThe story doesnāt work out the way I thought it would; there are lots of surprises along the way, and that pain can be really insurmountable sometimes, and itās just ongoing. But there are still moments of beauty within that as well. I think if you have had a life of pain ā and I can relate to a lot of the story ā it really makes you appreciate the good that you have in life as well.ā
āIt took me a few months to read, and I kept on putting it down because it would bring up a lot in me. It forced me to look at some aspects of growing up that I chose to put away, but it was done so beautifully that it made it okay to start thinking about it again.ā
āBasically it deals with addiction and some of the emotional abuse in there as well. Those were things I could relate to on a pretty personal levelā¦.It made a lot of this stuff less lonely. Iām going to keep it a little general and leave it at that.ā
āEach relationship I was in suited the person I was at the time. When I was struggling with my family, I had a very complicated relationship with them, I was with a woman who was very maternal, who took care of me and taught me that family was what you made of it, that it was logical vs. biological.ā
āThe most emotional moment was, I think, when I met AJās mom, in the coming-out episode. This didnāt make it to the final cut, but when he was asking her, āAre you okay with this?ā she said, āYouāre AJ.ā She just loves him unconditionally, and thatās a choice she makes to love him. There is no judgment thereā¦.She had no idea. And for her to make that choice and still love him just as much, if not more, because heās finally being honest with her, that was something that ā¦ I wish I had a little more of in my life growing up, in certain stages. Iām glad we got to show that. Thatās what a parental figure can be like. Itās the whole idea of how your parents are an accident of birth. Bob Dylan was big about that; he changed his name because he felt like he never really connected to his parents. We get to create that for ourselves.ā
āI donāt have a relationship with my mother, so I donāt know whether sheās seen it or not. My father has seen it and heās very quiet about it. Heās like, āI think itās very cool what youāre doing.ā Heās not a man of too many words. Heās very cerebral, very Dostoevsky. He hosted a big viewing party with 40 family members and they all watched it. He had no idea before he watched it what it was about! He had no clue. But he loves it when I talk about food, and heās always loved when I talk about food. I think heās proud.ā
https://www.stylist.co.uk/kindfulness/queer-eye-antoni-porowski-season-two-fab-five-jonathan-van-ness-makeover-tv/212437
He says that food helped him woo his boyfriend of seven yearsā¦and also kept him afloat throughout his troubled college years (he began using substances after his psychology degree forced him to confront difficult aspects of his upbringing)
https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=621149796
POROWSKI: That was really an episode where I think the tables were turned. With Tammye, it was really switched. And I feel like she called us out on a lot of our stuff and really brought a lot of things to light. Iāll kind of leave it as - Iāve had a problematic relationship growing up with my parents. Things are a lot better right now, but itās definitely been a work in progress. And unconditional love from a parent is not something that I take for granted.
And to see somebody like Tammye who is so embedded in her religion - itās something thatās very important to her - and was able to realize it wasnāt the Bible, it wasnāt religion. It was the way that she chose to look at her son being gay and how he was or wasnāt accepted into the church. Whenever I see a parent showing unconditional love for their child, I have a very soft spot for all the moms out there.
GREENE: Was there any discussion in the edit about, like, how much you wanted that to be in there? I mean, presumablyā¦
POROWSKI: There actuallyā¦
GREENE: ā¦You know, your family would, you know, see this.
POROWSKI: Yeah, there was. With me - itās tricky because itās an opportunity to have people relate. But at the same time, I do want to try to maintain some kind of, like, privacy and respect for my family. Families are tricky. I come from a really dysfunctional one. I havenāt shied away from saying that. But I still have love for every single one of them. And itās something that I think weāre working on, and everyoneās doing it in their own way. And itās something that Iām learning in an exponential way. Itās this - like, the growth curve is very steep. But Iām kind of figuring it out. And - yeah.
https://youtu.be/63mEOgHYyx4
āI have a very complicated relationship with my biological mother, but the time that we did share together, even though it was very boundaried, was when she was cooking and I would watch her cook even though I wasnāt allowed to participate, I loved watching her cook.ā
https://youtu.be/BjBApG5qcNg
āI needed help and my parents werenāt available for that help so I went to a teacher.ā
And thereās a lot more out there but I got tired lol. I would also recommend you listen to some of the podcasts heās been on, heās more open in those.
