District of Columbia
‘Queer Eye’ cast talk legacy — and filming final season in D.C.
The cast of Netflix’s Queer Eye visited Crush Bar to reflect on 10 seasons of the show and share what they discovered in D.C.
Four members of the Fab Five from Netflix’s “Queer Eye” brought their warmth, humor, and sharp insights to Crush Dance Bar in D.C. on Monday.
The appearance — organized by Creative Artists Agency (CAA), the talent firm representing Antoni Porowski, Jonathan Van Ness, Karamo Brown, and Jeremiah Brent — celebrated the work of the cast as they prepare to wrap the Emmy-winning series with its final season.
For seven years, “Queer Eye” has been a cultural touchstone. Since its 2018 reboot, the show has followed the Fab Five — members of the gay community and experts in their fields — as they transform the lives of “heroes” across the world. Through cooking, design, grooming, self-help, and style, the hosts offer more than just makeovers; they help their subjects embrace confidence, authenticity, and joy.
Absent from the evening was Tan France, the show’s style expert, who is not managed by CAA. Still, the four attending stars filled the room with energy during a 30-minute panel reflecting on their experiences both on the show and in the nation’s capital.
Antoni Porowski, the show’s food and wine expert, noted that D.C. has its own unique personality compared to other cities they’ve visited.
“Even amid all of the institutions, there’s something very grandiose about D.C.,” Porowski said. “I think there are beautiful little pockets that we’ve had a chance to film in that I’m really excited for everyone to see… When we’re in places like Kansas City and Atlanta, I feel like we go there and people are just welcoming us with open arms. We felt very welcome here, but you have to fight for people’s affection more in cities… they’ve seen some shit, and you have to kind of work a little harder, which I love.”
Karamo Brown, the culture and self-help expert, admitted he arrived in the capital with certain assumptions that quickly dissolved after meeting residents.
“D.C. has been amazing… I thought everybody was gonna be like, pretty serious and boring, and y’all know how to turn up. And I realized, oh, y’all deal with a lot, so of course you know how to have a cocktail to turn up. But then there was also this sort of quiet compassion… even if you don’t agree with what they’re doing, you’re still accepting and loving… I thought that was beautiful.”
For design expert Jeremiah Brent, the city’s artistic landscape was the standout surprise.
“I didn’t realize how beautiful D.C. was until we got here,” Brent said. “The architecture… so much Art Deco… beautiful parks… and bronze work and everything that’s going on with the statues. It’s so layered and so beautiful. There’s so much to see.”
Jonathan Van Ness, the grooming guru whose effusive personality has become a hallmark of the show, found themselves charmed by the city’s natural beauty.
“Not to be predictable, but the magnolia trees you got… the cherry trees… the trees are a 10,” Van Ness said. “The people have been a 10. The people in Maryland are maybe… grumpier… But D.C., no notes. Virginia, we love it over there. And there’s SolidCores everywhere!”
Filming in D.C., the cast said, makes it impossible to fully separate the city’s political identity from its day-to-day life. For Porowski, one particular shoot drove that home.
“We did a scene right in front of the White House– we were all kind of standing there, and I looked over at you guys [the rest of the cast], and it kind of dawned on me,” Porowski said. “As a kid, it was just… such a symbol of so much, depending on what the situation [inside] is going on. Sometimes it could be a symbol of hope and excitement, and other times it could just be kind of terrifying.”
Brown tied that observation to the importance of human connection in politically divided times.
“I think as we’re in these next three years, we [need to] continue to look to the person to the left and right of us and say, ‘I got you,’” Brown said. “We have to remember that a lot of these people are just in vacuums that their algorithm puts them in… I literally asked my ex’s mother and her three other friends… if I could see their phones, and I reset all their algorithms. Out of the four of them, three of them no longer support Donald Trump… what’s keeping us apart is misinformation.”
Van Ness expanded on that point, saying that the political climate under President Donald Trump has created real financial consequences for queer professionals.
“I’ve noticed this massive reticence of even brands wanting to work with micro queer creators… we really do need brands to stand by the queer community. Try to hire queer people when you can, because the community is struggling and when Republicans have made it their cornerstone to impact us monetarily… I’ve seen that from top to bottom.”
For Brent, the D.C. shoot was defined less by politics and more by the warmth of its LGBTQ community.
“I actually am obsessed with politics, and I was very excited about being here,” Brent said. “I was like, ‘This is gonna be so exciting’… but I would say that the thing that actually surprised me the most about D.C. is the queer community and how kind people are. I have my children here… people have been so generous and kind. D.C. feels like a little small town in some ways, which I think is the most beautiful part about it.”
As the panel wrapped, the conversation turned to the show’s legacy and what comes next for each of the stars.
Porowski said the experience has reshaped how he approaches both work and life.
“Queer Eye’s definitely, understatement for me of the century that it’s completely changed the way I navigate the world, the conversations that I have, how I approach work… I realized pretty quickly it’s really storytelling and connecting through food,” Porowski said. “Now [I’m] shifting into different territory with National Geographic and Disney, where the cities are their own characters.”
For Brown, the series has been nothing short of life-changing.
“This has been the greatest gift of my life… for 10 seasons, people have seen us, believed and trusted in us, and we have made a difference,” Brown said. He now brings that same mission to his daytime talk show, “Karamo.” “I just want to help people five days a week on a daytime talk show… to live that dream where five days a week I can just help people, I am so thankful for the training I got here with these three.”
Brent said whatever comes next for him will need to be as purposeful as “Queer Eye.”
“It’s been one of the biggest highlights of my professional career… more than a show, because what we’re able to do, the foundation of it is purpose… five people showing up and seeing you the way you want to be seen… through the process of the show and their friendship, I reclaimed parts of myself. They Queer-Eyed me… moving forward as I try to decide what that’s going to be has to be something rooted in that same purpose.”
Van Ness, who juggles multiple ventures including their haircare line JVN Hair and podcast “Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness,” reflected on the enormity of closing this chapter.
“We’re literally about to film our last episode, and that is this week — so surreal. This has been such a roller coaster… one that I’m so grateful for, that’s really surpassed every single wildest dream I could have possibly had… I think I will spend the rest of my life processing what this experience has meant to me.”
District of Columbia
Judge issues revised order in Capital Pride stalking case
Defendant Darren Pasha agreed to accept less restrictive directive
A D.C. Superior Court judge on April 30 reinstated an anti-stalking order requested by the Capital Pride Alliance against local gay activist Darren Pasha based on allegations that Pasha engaged in a year-long effort to harass, intimidate, and stalk the organization’s staff, board members, and volunteers.
The reinstated order by Judge Robert D. Okun followed an April 17 court hearing in which he rescinded a similar order he initially approved in February on grounds that more evidence was needed to substantiate the need for the order.
At the time he rescinded the earlier order he scheduled an evidentiary hearing for April 29 at which three Capital Pride staff members testified in support of the anti-stalking order. But Okun discontinued the hearing after Pasha, who was representing himself without an attorney, announced he was willing to accept a revised, less restrictive temporary restraining order.
The judge said Pasha’s decision to accept a restraining order made it no longer necessary to continue the evidentiary hearing. He then asked Capital Pride and Pasha to submit their suggested revisions for the order which they submitted a short time later.
The case began when Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based LGBTQ group that organizes the city’s annual Pride events, filed a civil complaint on Oct. 27, 2025, against Pasha, accusing him of engaging in a year-long effort to harass, intimidate, and stalk Capital Pride staff, board members, and volunteers. It includes a 167-page addendum of “supporting exhibits” that includes multiple statements by unidentified witnesses.
Pasha, who has represented himself without an attorney, has argued in multiple court filings and motions that the stalking allegations are untrue. In his initial court response to the complaint, he said it appears to be a form of retaliation against him for a dispute he has had with Capital Pride and its former board president, Ashley Smith, who has since resigned from the board.
Similar to his earlier anti-stalking order against Pasha, Okun’s reissued order on April 30 states, a “Temporary Anti-Stalking Order is GRANTED, effective immediately and remaining in effect until further order of the Court or final disposition of this matter.”
It adds, “The defendant shall not contact, attempt to contact, harass, threaten, or otherwise communicate with any protected person, directly or indirectly, including through third parties, social media, electronic communication, or any other means.”
Unlike the earlier order, which did not identify the “protected persons” by name, the latest order includes a list of 34 people, 13 of whom are Capital Pride staff members or volunteers, including CEO Ryan Bos and Chief Operating Officer June Crenshaw. The other 21 people listed are identified as Capital Pride board members, including board chair Anna Jinkerson.
Possibly because Pasha addressed this in his suggested version of the order, the judge’s revised order says Pasha is allowed to visit the D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center, where the Capital Pride office is located, if he gives the community center a 24 hour advance notice that he will be visiting the center, which hosts many events unrelated to Capital Pride. The earlier order required him to stay at least 100 feet away from the Capital Pride office.
The new order also prohibits Pasha from attending 21 named events that Capital Pride Alliance either organizes itself or with partner organizations that were scheduled to take place from April 30 through June 21. The order says he is allowed to attend the two largest events, the June 20 Pride Parade and the June 21 Pride Festival and Concert, in which 500,000 or more people are expected to attend.
It says Pasha is also allowed to attend the June 15 Pride At The Pier event organized by the Washington Blade.
But for those three events the order says he is restricted from entering “ticketed and controlled access areas.”
At the April 29 court hearing, Okun also scheduled a mandatory remote mediation session for July 23, in which efforts would be made to resolve the civil complaint case brought by Capital Pride without going to trial.
District of Columbia
Both sides propose revised orders in Capital Pride stalking case
Defendant Darren Pasha agreed to accept less restrictive directive
An evidentiary hearing in D.C. Superior Court on April 29 in which the Capital Pride Alliance presented three of four planned witnesses to testify in support of its civil complaint that D.C. gay activist Darren Pasha engaged in a year-long effort to harass, intimidate, and stalk its staff, board members, and volunteers ended abruptly at the direction of the judge.
Judge Robert D. Okun announced from the bench that the hearing, which was intended provide Capital Pride an opportunity to present evidence in support of its request to reinstate an anti-stalking order against Pasha that the judge temporarily rescinded on April 17, was no longer needed because Pasha stated at the hearing that he is willing to accept a revised, less restrictive temporary restraining order.
Pasha made that statement after two Capital Pride witnesses — June Crenshaw and Vincenzo Volpe — each testified in support of the stalking allegations against Pasha for over an hour under questioning from Capital Pride attorney Nick Harrison and under cross-examination from Pasha, who is representing himself without an attorney.
After Capital Pride’s third witness, Tifany Royster, testified for just a few minutes, and after the judge called a recess for lunch and to attend to an unrelated case, Pasha announced that after obtaining legal advice he determined that he was unsuited to continue cross-examining the witnesses. He said he would be willing to accept a significantly less restrictive temporary restraining order.
Okun then ruled that the evidentiary hearing was no longer needed and directed Capital Pride and Pasha to submit to him their version of a revised stay away order. He said he would use their proposed revisions to help him develop his own order, which he would issue after deliberating over the matter.
He also scheduled a mandatory remote mediation session for July 23, in which efforts would be made to resolve the case without going to trial. He then adjourned the hearing at 3:50 p.m.
The online Superior Court docket for the case stated after the hearing ended that the judge would issue “a new modified Temporary Protective Order,” but it did not say when it would be issued.
Shortly before the April 29 hearing began at 11 a.m., Harrison filed a “Draft Temporary Anti-Stalking Order” that included a list of 34 “Protected Persons” that Harrison said during the hearing were affiliated with Capital Pride Alliance as staff and board members, volunteers, and others associated with the group.
The proposed order stated, “The defendant shall not contact, attempt to contact, harass, threaten, or otherwise communicate with any protected person, directly or indirectly, including through third parties, social media, electronic communications, or any other means.”
The proposal represented a significant change from Capital Pride’s initial civil complaint against Pasha filed in February that Pasha claimed called for him to stay away at least 200 yards from all Capital pride staff, board members, and volunteers without naming them. Okun granted that stay away request in February but reduced the stay away distance to 100 feet.
Capital Pride attorney Harrison disputes Pasha’s interpretation of the order, saying the 100-foot stay-away was for events, not for individual Capital Pride staff, volunteers, or board members. He said the order prohibited Pasha from engaging in any way with the Capital Pride staffers, volunteers or board members.
But the proposed order Capital Pride at first submitted at the April 29 hearing also called for Pasha to stay away from and to not attend as many as 25 Capital Pride events scheduled to take place this year from April 30 through June 21 and for him to say away from the Capital Pride office located at 1827 Wiltberger St., N.W., which is the building in which it shares with the DC LGBTQ Community Center.
At the April 29 hearing, at Pasha’s request, Okun called on Capital Pride to consider allowing Pasha to attend at least the two largest events — the Capital Pride Parade and Festival — which draw over 500,000 participants.
Harrison said in a follow-up message to the judge following the hearing that Capital Pride would allow Pasha to attend those two events and one other as long as he stays away from “ticketed and controlled access areas.”
At an April 17 status hearing Okun rescinded the earlier stay away order at Pasha’s request, among other things, on grounds that it was too vague and didn’t provide Pasha with sufficient specific information on who to stay away from. It was at that hearing that Okun scheduled the April 29 evidentiary hearing, saying it would give Capital Pride a chance to provide sufficient evidence to justify an anti-stalking order and Pasha an opportunity to challenge the evidence.
In his own response to the initial civil complaint filed in February and in subsequent court filings, Pasha has strongly denied he engaged in stalking and has alleged that the complaint was a form of retaliation against him over a dispute he has had with Capital Pride and its former board president, Ashley Smith.
Like its initial complaint filed in February, Capital Pride filed a multipage document at the start of the April 29 hearing with written testimony from staff members and volunteers who allege that Pasha did engage in stalking, harassment, and intimidating behavior toward them and others.
Like Capital Pride, Pasha following the April 29 hearing, filed his own proposed version of the stay away order with significantly less restrictions than the Capital Pride proposal. Among other things, it calls for him to restrict his contact with Capital Pride CEO Ryan Bos and Crenshaw but says it “does not by its terms restrict the defendant’s communications with any other person, entity, governmental body, or media outlet.”
“Darren Pasha sent multiple messages to us and to the court after the proceedings asking for further modifications — which we are not accepting or responding to,” Harrison told the Blade in response to a request for further comment on Judge’s request for each side to submit proposed revisions of the stay away order.
“We appreciate the court’s time and careful attention to the evidence presented today,” Harrison told the Washington Blade in a written statement after the hearing. “This process was about bringing forward the experiences of individuals who reported a pattern of conduct that caused fear, serious alarm, and emotional distress,” he said.
“Capital Pride Alliance remains committed to ensuring that our events and community spaces are safe, welcoming, and free from harassment and we will continue to take appropriate steps to support and protect our community,” his statement says.
“I am happy with what we have accomplished so far,” Pasha told the Blade after the hearing. “I’m just waiting to see what will happen next. But I want to reiterate this goes back to when someone treats you wrong you speak up,” he said. “Even if I lose this case, I am glad that I spoke up and raised concerns.”
He added, “I will just be confident that in the next couple of months the truth will come out. But for now, I am happy with the progress that we have made regarding this.”
This story will be updated when the judge issues his revised stay away order.
District of Columbia
U.S. Attorney’s Office fails to reinstate hate crime charge in anti-gay assault
The Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes criminal cases in the District, has decided not to reinstate a hate crime designation filed by D.C. police against a man arrested in February for allegedly assaulting a gay man while using “homophobic slurs.”
After prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office initially dropped the hate crime designation filed by police shortly after the alleged attacker was arrested on Feb. 7, a spokesperson for the office told the Washington Blade the case was still under investigation, and additional charges could be filed.
“We continue to investigate this matter and make no mistake: should the evidence call for further charges, we will not hesitate to charge them,” a statement released by the office in February said.
But D.C. Superior Court records show the case against defendant Dean Edmundson, 26, of Germantown, Md., who is now charged with Simple Assault without a hate crime designation, is scheduled to go to trial on Aug. 18.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office this week did not immediately respond to a message from the Blade asking why it chose not to reinstate the hate crime designation.
An affidavit in support of the arrest filed in court by D.C. police appears to support the charge of a hate crime designation. It says the incident occurred around 7:45 p.m. on Feb. 7 at the intersection of 14th and Q Streets, N.W., which is near two D.C. gay bars.
“The victim stated that they refused to High-Five Defendant Edmundson, which, upon that happening, Defendant Edmundson started walking behind both the victim and witness, calling the victim bald, ugly, and gay,” the arrest affidavit states.
“The victim stated that upon being called that, Defendant Edmundson pushed the victim with both hands, shoving them, causing the victim to feel the force of the push,” the affidavit says, adding, “The victim stated that they felt offended and that they were also gay.”
Under D.C.’s Bias Related Crimes Act of 1989, penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice and hate against individuals based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity disability, and homelessness can be enhanced by a judge upon conviction by one and a half times greater than the penalty of the underlying crime.
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