Jonathan Van Ness sat down with Audacy’s AJ Gibson and Mikalah Gordon on CHANNEL Q, to fill us in on their brand new book Love That Story: Observations from a Gorgeously Queer Life.
Listen to JVN's full interview on CHANNEL Q below
JVN’s new book touches on grieving and processing the emotions that come with grief while also being in the public eye due to the success of Queer Eye. Van Ness shared, “this book is about how grief plays a role in all of our lives.”
After writing their first book, Over The Top, JVN realized that creative writing has always been a tool that they’ve used to process emotion. “It’s something that I’ve turned to as a form of therapy,” said the Netflix star. “As soon as Over The Top came out I immediately had so many more feelings, which is basically where we pick back up in Love That Story… by like March or April of 2020 I realized I had so much more to write about.”
For Van Ness, it’s always been about storytelling and art. When people have asked how they define themselves, whether as a hairstylist, a comedian, an author or a podcast host JVN has leaned into the idea of simply defining themselves as an “artist.” The Getting Curious host noted, “for me, it always boils down to the fact that I’m an artist. Whatever opportunities I’ve had in my life it’s always been an art. Hairstyling was my first love, it was my first passion. Now I’ve been able to get into comedy… or writing which is again an art form.”
When readers pick up Love That Story, Van Ness hopes they understand “the complexities of what it is to be human.” In one chapter of the book, titled “Sorry Karen,” JVN touches on modern-day racism and acknowledges white privilege. “It doesn’t make you an inherently bad person to acknowledge that white privilege exists,” explained JVN. “I think for so many white people they have felt like if they acknowledge it, it makes them a bad person. It tarnishes their family or the things that they’ve gone through, and actually, there is space for us to acknowledge so many things at once. You could have gone through hard times and gone through suffering and also still have benefitted from the structures that are white supremacy.”
“Everyone, I think is trying to heal. Everyone is trying to do the best with what they know,” said JVN. "A lot of these conversations are tough and they are uncomfortable, but if we don’t open ourselves up to having them… then we are never going to be able to reach out and be whole.”
The Queer Eye star concluded, “What we all want is to be integrated members of our community, is what I think. And I don’t think that anyone really inherently wants to hate each other. They’re just doing the best they can with what they know and sometimes they don’t know other people’s experiences. So, hopefully, this is an honest and open, vulnerable approach… hopefully, people can take something from that and take some of that information to spaces in their lives and to people who need to hear some of those stories.”
When sharing advice for young LGBTQ+ community members who are just beginning to explore their identities JVN emphasized the fact that “you don’t have to know everything,” underscoring that it is okay to learn along the way and not know where you are going to end up. Additionally, Van Ness added, “I think for all LGBTQIA+ people, what I would say to all of them is…you are just so loved.”
Listen to Jonathan Van Ness’s full interview above. Love That Story: Observations from a Gorgeously Queer Life is available wherever books are sold.
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