Jonathan Van Ness - 'I was one wrong thing away from losing everything'

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1:03welcome to how to fail and for those that are new around here this is the podcast where i talk to my guests about three failures in their life and what they've learned along the way please do follow this podcast because it really helps other people find us and please do share it with all of your friends and family members and even people you don't like we're not fussy thank you so much for being here. On all of my body of Queer Eye, it's the only time where the hero looked worse when I was done. I was like one wrong thing away from like losing everything. I mean, there are times where I'm like snappy and short and I need to work on it.

1:40And it's a process that I've been working on for like 37 years.

1:47My guest today is a shaper of culture, a queer icon, a three times New York Times bestseller, a podcaster, award-winning TV personality, a business magnate who started their own sustainable hair care brand. I'm running out of breath, there are so many achievements. And according to their own website, an HIV positive non-binary truth teller determined to make this world a better, more equitable, yet funnier place. They are, of course, Jonathan Van Ness, or JVN for those in the know. They grew up in a small town in Illinois, often feeling like an outsider and experiencing bullying for their love of figure skating, gymnastics, and their mother's Hermes scarves.

2:33Van Ness was the first male cheerleader at their high school, and despite a challenging early adulthood involving drugs and sex addiction, they found their way to fame through hairstyling. Gay of Thrones, their hilarious recaps of Game of Thrones from the styling chair, was nominated for an Emmy. But it was their casting in Netflix's Queer Eye that shot them to global fame. In a fractured society, the makeover show opens minds by showing that our similarities are greater than our differences. Today, alongside Queer Eye, Van Ness hosts their podcast, Getting Curious, and is about to head off on a stand-up comedy tour in the US.

3:16Despite all their success, Van Ness has been open about their struggles with self-acceptance in the past. In their award-winning 2019 memoir, Over the Top, they wrote, When you have this much personality, there's a fear lurking just below the surface. If you knew all of me, you wouldn't love me anymore. You would no longer want me as your new best friend. Jonathan Van Ness, welcome to How to Fail. Hi, thanks for having me. Thank you so much for being here. And I totally want you to be my new best friend. Well, thank you so much for saying that, honey. I want to be your best friend too. It's done.

3:54It's a done deal. But I wanted to end on that quote partly because your memoir is so beautifully written and partly because it spoke to something deep in my soul, that sense that however someone sees you on the outside, you could be feeling totally differently on the inside. How do you feel now in terms of that self-acceptance? I feel in a completely different place than when I wrote Over the Top. I think when Over the Top came out, I had equal parts relief and vulnerability hangover, as Brené Brown would say. I did disclose my HIV status in that book. And while I thought I was really ready to share everything that I shared in the book, I really was like, I just wasn't prepared for the reaction.

4:45And I went through something so hard at the beginning of last year, which was this Rolling Stone article that was just a devastating experience for me. But one thing that that taught me was that my idea of self-acceptance I thought was self-earned, but really it was because of the validation of social media, of so many of those achievements that you read in that intro. And my sense of self-acceptance and self-love was so rocked by that experience that like such an intense depression, such an intense, just so many experiences that got brought up to the surface that I never kind of saw coming that it made me rethink so much of my career so much of how I come across in public and ultimately it really did teach me that like validation has to come from inside because if you are relying on it from other people media parasocial relations like relationships it will leave you a hollow shell of yourself Oh, Jonathan, I'm so sorry.

5:49Oh my God, it was so traumatizing. It was an article that basically made various allegations about that. It said I was an emotionally abusive monster with rage issues, who was a nightmare to work with in any capacity. And I think the reason that that's coming up for me is because I knew with Queer Eye, like, and I say over the top, like, who you see on Queer Eye is who I am. And there's so much more. And so I was always scared with Queer Eye because I was like, I don't know if I can live up to this version of myself all the time. And there are times where I'm like snappy and short and I need to work on it.

6:21And it's a process that I've been working on for like 37 years, you know? So I think, and it's like almost the year anniversary of it. And I'm just, there was a time where I like didn't know what my life would look like. And I feel better than I felt in such a long time. And I can imagine that Queer Eye could have been so crushing to have to live up to when we are multifaceted humans and we can't be easily pigeonholed or put into a box. There was this thing that I read about you about your grandfather being called the floater when he played Trivial Pursuit and how you apply that term to your own life.

6:57Will you tell us that story? Yeah, so I love that you read that. So my family would always play Trivial Pursuit on vacation, and we're a competitive bunch. And my grandfather would just answer questions for anybody's team. And he would be assigned to a team, but he just didn't care. He was like, if he knew that answer, honey, he was going to let you know. And I do feel that I picked that trade up because I will just randomly hear a question that wasn't even directed to me. And I so badly want to answer it and just like participate. So I think I have like a floater quality myself. And do you think you apply that floater quality to your identity too?

7:35Maybe. I mean, I think, if anything, I think I just like love to learn things. And as long as it's not math, I just like want to learn about that. I think it's really interesting. Yes. Hence getting curious, your podcast and your practice launch getting better. Yes. I've been podcasting for such a long time. I think it was like December of 2015 that I started getting curious. Oh, you are an OG. Yeah. And then I took like, I went from December of like 15 to like February of 17, booked Queer Eye. My podcast got canceled the next day. I love this story. Got canceled the next day and I remember thinking in my head to that like the president of that network I was like big mistake huge like you work on commission right because you don't even know what mistake you just made but it was good because I like so I kind of paused the podcast went and filmed the first two seasons of Queer Eye and then when I was done it was like September of 2017 because it took like four months to film those first two seasons I was like so excited to get back into the studio and start because I mean at that time I was like booking all my own guests scheduling all my own guest like it was like me and a sound engineer so much so much work but I was so excited to get back to it and then um and then I started back you know in 2017 and I've been like I think I did like two like two episodes a month for a few months but then I was like every week sometime in the beginning of 2018 so it's been a long time running and it's like oh my god let's give this a queer eye makeover like let's like switch it up a little bit so we're changing the name and I'm just going to try to like work with my neurodivergence and focus, which is not in my neurodivergence's arousal template.

9:15You know, I like to like learn about everything different, but we're just going to try to focus a little bit more and still be curious, like curiosity driven, but make it more about like health, mental health, culture, society, how to, how to kind of find the parts of ourselves that we need to work on and find the parts of ourselves that we need to love on and ultimately like refine ourselves into like the best version of ourselves love that talking of the best version of ourselves and your renewed feeling of self-acceptance is that also partly to do with the fact that you've got married oh my gosh um my husband's so cute yeah we've been i think i say to him like once a month i'm like can you believe how long we've been married it's my my longest relationship ever um we'll be married for five years this june congratulations Thank you.

10:02It's longer than an Olympic cycle. It's a really long time. Yeah. And has that helped with your sense of peace? I don't know. I mean, I think it... I don't know if it's helped with my sense of peace, but he has helped me be a better person. and I just think like a secure functioning relationship is like it's a conscious choice it's not easy um but it is easy it's I'm non-binary so it's like hard for me to like exactly pick something it's a joke but um I it's it's easy and it's hard like there is an ease to being with him like um and there's also difficulty because relationships like are kind of like a mirror like it brings up the things in you that you are like oh I don't know if I like that part to me and I need to like work on that um but he also has such like intense patience and love and like patience and acceptance so having that in my life I do think has brought me a lot of peace I so appreciate your honesty so that brings us neatly on to Queer Eye and before we get onto your failures I just wanted to say thank you for Queer Eye it still has the capacity to make me cry every single episode because it's about not only how people feel about themselves, but it's also a challenge to the culture at large, it feels now.

11:29In the times that we're living through, it is a show about acceptance and inclusivity. And I just wondered what it means to you. It means so much that sometimes I almost feel like I can't fully feel it because I almost don't even trust myself to fully feel it because it would be like too overwhelming because I'm just so honored. The first Queer Eye was a huge deal to me. And it, like I watched it religiously. I watched it with my mom. I watched it with my grandparents. And I do think that the first Queer Eye had a huge ripple effect in culture that I literally rode on one of those waves. So to get to hopefully magnify that and be a part of that conversation now is like, I just can't even believe that I got to do it.

12:20And at the same time, it's kind of concerning being like politically minded and like being just aware of the world. Because while representation and there has been, I think, a lot of self-acceptance and like, I mean, part of my mission personally has been to promote this idea of self-acceptance and like learning to love all of the parts of ourselves. And I think that all of us on the show have had our own kind of passions and initiatives that we wanted to use our platforms for. But so often I have heard people say like almost use Queer Eye or use other queer representation as a barometer for like the health of queer people or like our community at large.

13:04And, you know, we really clearly can see that that isn't the case. Like, just because there's more queer things on television and more access to queer visibility, it doesn't mean that queer visibility is not important. But I think it's very clear that queer visibility isn't the answer. Because if it was the answer, we wouldn't have Donald Trump in the presidency. We wouldn't have the House and Senate outlaw trans participation in sports. When we're out here talking about, like, ten trans athletes that... And it's not only competitive athletes. It's like little kids just being able to be included, like to not be bullied in school.

13:46And what it mostly is too, it's like couched in protecting women and fairness in sports. But what it really is, is making sure that we erase trans people from public view. Like keep it underground, keep it behind closed doors. Like we don't want that out in public view. I just think it's no coincidence that like after Roe was overturned in 2022, the anti-transvitriol like has risen at the same pace because how do you like divide and conquer? You have to make a bigger threat. And so once like the ultimate threat was carried out on women in 27 states in the United States where they no longer have access to reproductive health care, it's like a pretty convenient boogie person, you know, to come up with in trans women or just, you know, trans people.

14:32So yeah, so it's a huge honor to be part of Queer Eye. I love Queer Eye so much. I also want us to be able to have like, I want politicians and leaders to do a better job of like advocating for queer people. Final question before we get onto your failures. Do you feel less safe in Donald Trump's America? A hundred percent. But I also don't feel like, I mean, I felt, I live in Texas and I felt really concerned there for, I mean, I went there for Queer Eye back in season six and then my husband and I decided to stay. just like slower pace you drive everywhere like more affordable um but it's gotten worse i mean it's even just in the last four years like i like i don't wear heels to dinner there like you know like it has totally gotten worse because if you did wear heels to dinner i just like i'm literally think about where the exits are like i can't run as fast if i'm in a heel that's so sad but i'm so sorry that you're going through it and that the community is going through it i just feel so bad it's like our community but it's also like there's just so it's like it's gun violence it's like they're just just violence period it's it's you know it's we it's weird but i still do love america but i wish we could get it the fuck together yeah maybe you should run from office can you imagine i actually can't imagine i'd rather just be like an ambassador to like a chic country yes or even just like any country really like i don't even have to be like i just i just think like ambassador van ness would be fun yeah um it's like a little less pressure you know it's also not elected i don't know if i could go through an election my rejection sensitivity yeah fair enough hard i can so see you as an ambassador with the hosting and the chic outfits oh actually i don't want to the hosting i forgot about that i don't want to have people over to my house like i don't want them using up my nice china like because you get like cute ambassador china i feel like there's like probably like pretty china it's like the embassy yes i don't want these hoes messing up my fucking china your first failure we're talking about tv and the first failure is the getting curious tv show being canceled tell us about this so i pitched it like the end of 2019 netflix was like we're gonna think about it for a while and then they said we're gonna do it but we don't know when we're gonna do it and then i was like that's kind of nice like i'll just keep thinking about like how to adapt a tv like no pressure no timeline obsessed like it's like development then the pandemic happened and it was like later on in 2020 like septemberish and we'd moved to texas in like march of 2020 and did like four days of our first episode when everything shut down and so then it was september of that year and i think you know it started to become clear like you couldn't have five people in a car like anytime soon so then at that time netflix was like okay we want to go into production on your show now.

17:19And when I got that call, I had this voice in my head, like my intuition was so clear. And it was like, it was, it's a mistake to do this while Queer Eye is on TV. Like, don't do it now. Because if you're, if this has to compete with Queer Eye, it's like never going to work. And so what I said was, I was like, oh my God, I'm so excited. Could we do it like later? Like a lot later? Like, could we just maybe in the response was, and not from Netflix, it was from a cacophony of people in my circle. Um, we're like, they're not asking you when you want to do it. It's like now or never. So under pressure, I said, yes.

18:02And it just never felt right. Like I've never worked harder on anything in my life. I was so scared because we didn't have vaccines yet. so much pressure if I end up on like the six o 'clock news and like someone's grandma dies because I wanted to learn about fucking figure skating or, you know, or snacks. Like it just was this immense amount of pressure to like film under. And so the whole creative of the show was originally like a travel show where I was like going to colleges, going into labs and like, and it just got totally, I mean, we got kind of sequestered into like New York city. like we had to be in like you know a very small area um and so it just ended up being like a completely different vision and a completely different i'm so proud of what we made and our crew and our showrunner and myself it's like the first thing that i ever executive produced and i think to ep your own series like i'm so proud of what we got to do but it's it wasn't the vision it felt like just a insect getting like hurled at a windshield like I remember thinking that whole time and saying that whole time like as long as we get a season two like I just then I won't feel like I failed and it'll give me another like makes me not cry thinking about it I'll just know that it was like worth it and then when it got canceled it was just like so brutal like and then realizing that like Netflix's expectations of the show were like frankly so unrealistic like They needed my show to be more successful than Queer Eye in order for it to even ever come back.

19:37And if I would have known that my show that was a completely different concept and was seeing me in a completely different way was up against a show that's had like two decades and millions and millions of dollars in advertising given to it, I would have just listened to my intuition. It was so many good learning experiences, but also kind of soul crushing. And when you learned that it was cancelled, I'm very interested in how people learn to deal with rejection. Because I often think that rejection takes you back to very, very early trauma. Yes. Did it remind you of rejections from your childhood?

20:18Yes. Can you talk a bit on that? Because I mentioned it briefly in the introduction, but that feeling of never quite fitting in, quote unquote. Yeah. I remember being in the shower a couple days after the final call and knowing for sure it wasn't coming back. And I just was so angry. And I wanted to be mad at my agents. I wanted to be mad at the network. I wanted to be mad. I just wanted to blame something. And I was like, who? And then I remember I was washing my hair and then I stopped. And I was like, girl, the only person you have to be disappointed with or upset with is you. Like, your voice, your intuition, like, told you clear as day.

20:59I heard it crystal clear. Like, and instead of having, like, faith in my ability or faith that Netflix would come back and that the timing would be right eventually, I didn't have the faith or the trust to, like, say no and, like, wait for the right time. I was like, well, I might never get it again. So it came from this, like, fear-based place instead of this, like, love-confidence-based place. It came from this like place of force instead of trust. And once I got that message, I was like, oh, I don't need to blame anybody. I don't need to. This isn't really like it is kind of a reflection on me, but it also doesn't have to be like a career definer.

21:39You got to executive produce something on Netflix that's major. Like not very many people get to say that they've done that. And like how cool. And I think for me, I really do love podcasting. I love the medium of it. I love the connection of it. I love the frequency of it. I love the community of it. And so my biggest thing was just to, I was just happy that I got to keep doing my podcast and that that didn't have to be the end of that road. Do you do much parenting of your inner child? I try, but sometimes we forget. Yes. And sometimes I find it so cringe. Yeah. But it's so necessary. Yes. So tell me a bit about childhood, Jonathan, and what they were like.

22:23Basically like how I am now. But, you know, very like into random things like figure skating, gymnastics, rocks. very very ADHD and I wasn't diagnosed until I was 25 but I can see how in retrospect like that like that ADHD and that neurodivergence like really kept me like that I think a lot of the bullying and a lot of the separation and anxiety like you know stemmed from that because my hyper focus and like hyperactivity on certain things was like overwhelming and still is I was mildly bullied, I would say, at my first secondary school. And a large part of my drive still, I think, is trying to prove those people wrong.

23:12Do you relate to that? No. Only because my drive really was like, I never wanted to ask my family for money. That was like one big drive. And the other big drive is that I wanted to make the world better a place for queer people. Once I got out of my hometown, that was like, my fuck you to those people. Because I was like, I don't have to see you anymore. And that idea of not wanting to ask your family for financial help, does that apply to other areas of your life too? An unwillingness to ask for help? It used to a lot more. And I just did my first comedy special. It came out like a couple months ago.

23:47It was called Fun and Slutty. And I do this bit in there about when I went to rehab and they teach you how to ask for help because asking for help is such a huge, important part of recovery. and I very iconically like they literally had all of us this should have been one of my feels they had all of us put on blindfolds and you had to like go to this like rope maze in the middle of this forest and like blindfolded get yourself out of this rope maze like holding the ropes you know and they were like you have an hour and then it blows up but that was like a joke uh the blowing up part but it wasn't funny to me because I was crashing off meth and it was like the second day that I was there um so I was like oh my god but I was the only person that didn't get out of the rope maze because there actually was no way out.

24:29You had to raise your hand and ask for help, but it never occurred to me to do that. So I was literally the only person in the freaking maze when the hour was over. So yes, asking for help did not come naturally to me. I felt really like I need, like, you know, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, like don't ask for help. But now I think it's, I've learned it really is so important to say like when you don't have it and when you need support and when you need help to varying degrees of success. But yeah, I have gotten a lot better. That is such an extraordinary metaphor, that rope maze in the forest.

25:06Let's move on to your second failure. I'm so glad that you've chosen this one because we don't often get business failures. And I think it's so important to open up the conversation around it. So the second one is learnings about launching and owning a business. Tell us why you chose this one. Oh my gosh. Well, largely because I'm so proud of JVN Hair. And I'm so proud of our resilience and our ability to bounce back and find a way. So yeah, I launched JVN Hair in 2021 with this company that doesn't exist anymore. It's like growth at any cost was their kind of mode. So it was like they had really big budgets and it was like grow, grow, grow.

25:50like and this is a parent company yeah sorry so i'm a complete ignoramus when it comes to yeah so it's a parent company so there's a few ways that you can do it you can either like go and raise your own money to like you know go out and do funding which would be like you would make like a pitch deck and have like a plan and then you would go raise money and then you would like launch your business but that felt really overwhelming to me and i was like i don't know how to do that. So I went and found a parent company that you like, they either fund it or they raise the money. So I really wanted to make something that was hair goal oriented versus hair type oriented.

26:26So I had like a really clear vision on like certain things that I wanted to do. And same thing with like my air dry cream. I was like, I wanted to make a curly cream that was multifunctional and so recovery serum. Like, I mean, literally all of the names of our products, I conceptualized, I named, but I didn't understand about COGS. That's cost of goods. I didn't understand about EBITDA. I didn't understand about a P &L, a profit and loss. I didn't understand margins. I didn't understand any of the business side. And I didn't want to because I was like, I'm sure someone else will do that. Well, they didn't because they ultimately went bankrupt.

27:01And so, you know, and bankruptcy is like a really scary thing. It's like really not a fun thing to go through. I didn't know anything about that. And so then going from that to like, you know, you have to find a new partner. And there's like IP involved, like the formulas, the intellectual property, you know, is owned by them, even though I made it. Yes. So, and not only that, I didn't have control over the sale. This is a nightmare. Because with bankruptcy, it's like it's all court, like the court is in charge of the sales. So like I didn't even know if we would have a parent company and then all of a sudden you know they're like we'll find a partner for you like your business is successful like don't worry we'll find a partner to then all of a sudden it's like we might not find a partner and time is running out like do you have millions of dollars and I was like no I have ADHD and an impulse spending problem like I didn't save fucking money like are you crazy and you'd have to like show to the court that you can like sustain the business and like I'd been listening to these people that we would find a new home for months.

28:06So it was like Q3 and four of 2023 was like, oh my God. Like it was so stressful that I grew a second butthole that I had to do an episode of my podcast about. Like that is how stressed I was. I got an anal fistula. Okay. Like literally never have had more pain. The strain. Blistering. Like I thought I was going to die. It was so stressful, But we found a new parent company and they're amazing. And, you know, what my concerns there were, were like, I really don't want our products like watered down. I know a lot of times when someone else comes in, like it does become just different formulas. And so being a hairdresser, I'm like, I had like the quality of our formulas is just like, that's like what I just lose sleep about at night.

28:55But they were really supportive with that. And they were like, we don't want to change what's working. but I think the biggest thing of like what I learned is like when you're starting a business I thought I was like well I want to have a whole line like I want to have like a complete line well if you start with like let's say budgets of like you know five million dollars and like 10 SKUs in order to be successful and grow you have to grow yes so that's a lot more pressure when you have$5 million invested in you, then like, let's say if you had raised, you know, 50 ,000 and done one product with like three people.

29:34And then when you have, you know, a direct to consumer business going, then you, you know, like start small and grow up. Like it's called bootstrapping. So like, if you have like 50 grand and you invest that in your company, once you make that money back and once you get successful, then you can like reinvest that money and you grow like this. But if you start - with someone else's money and it's like, you know, a really big budget, they're going to want to see returns. And if you don't grow on their pace under that pressure, like that's not good. And if you don't understand how business works, that's also not good.

30:11Do you now know your figures? Yes. Yeah. I know like our margins. I know how much our products cost. I know how much the formulas are. I know how much it costs us to ship a product. I know how much it costs for us to store our products. I know the president of our company, who I love so much, her name is Teresa. And she has the patience and resilience of, like, I don't even know a person to compare it to because it's so otherworldly. But she always jokes with me that it's like the business degree I never asked for. But I think that's, like, my other big takeaway is, like, you can't, if you're going to start a business, you really can't pick and choose what you want to learn about.

30:48like you either have to like earnestly learn all of it as well as you can while also not micromanaging because you can't be stepping on people's toes and like getting in the way of things that you don't know anything about but you do have to be intuitive and ask the right questions and know the right time to ask the right questions and be really patient but firm at the same time which is really difficult and I've made so many mistakes in the process of it but there was a time like last year when I didn't know about our future where like when I'd walk into my bathroom and like look at my air dry cream on the counter I would just like break down and at the same time I literally knew not to bring it back up but Rolling Stone was coming like I because I knew for months that it was coming like from November of 2023 until when it came out in March like I like I I mean, my friends, my family, like we're getting calls from their team.

31:45And it really makes me sad because I love Rolling Stone and I really like their reporting. And now every time I see their name, I'm like, ah! So my moral of that story is don't ever have a bad day around someone who you haven't seen for six years because they might harbor it and they may ever get a hold of like a journalist who really wants to sink their teeth into a story because that's a thing. the more clickbaity and outrageous something sounds, the more money it makes a publication. Like, so the worse they can make you look, the more they can like make something seem really scary and horrific, the better because the more eyeballs it gets, the more money they make in advertising.