One of the five men who have been conquering Netflix since 2018 has just opened up about “not really knowing” his sexuality.
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Antoni Porowski, an accomplished actor, model, and chef is well-known for his role on the hit makeover show Queer Eye. This award-winning series features five men who travel across America to transform the lives of people nominated by friends and family. Each member contributes to this transformation through areas such as fashion, food, interior design, grooming, and culture. On the show, he works with the participants by elevating their cooking skills. He does this through the introduction of various meals and recipes that can be enjoyed by the participant or the guests they entertain.
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Even though he is widely recognized as a certified foodie, Porowski has not always been so involved in the cooking realm. After graduating from Concordia University with a Bachelor’s in Creative Arts, he took on his dreams of stardom by moving to NYC to study acting. He then began teaching himself how to cook based on inspiration from his grandmother’s recipes. This passion for cooking then landed him a job as an assistant for Ted Allen, one of the O.G. “Fab Five” members. With a recommendation from the former Queer Eye cast member, Porowski then joined the four other guys to fill the role of the food and wine expert on the show. Many often view the group as five gay men, but Porowski is coming forward and breaking down these labels.
In a recent feature with GQ Hype, Porowski not only opens up about his opinions on British cuisine but also how he feels about the labels often assigned to him because of the show he appears on. He speaks about how he feels his sexuality is a lot more complex than just being referred to as gay. Porowski fears that by conforming to this idea that many people seem to have about his sexual identity, it will discredit other romantic interests he has had previously. “I feel like it dishonors women that I’ve been in love with,” he states when talking about why he wants to get rid of this restricting label. He has had his fair share of relationships with men in the past, but he has had more relationships with women. Because of the diversity of his romantic encounters, Porowski says that identifications such as “fluid” or “queer” would come much closer to defining his sexuality than being gay. Even though the lack of labels may confuse many, Porowski says that he “doesn’t really know” how he would identify his sexuality and he “kind of likes not knowing.”
While he has been on this journey of self-exploration and identification, he owes a lot of the confidence he has gained to his fellow Queer Eye members. He says that they encouraged him to “get to a place where I’m a lot more comfortable in my skin.”
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He says that before coming on the show, his fluidity in his sexuality and lack of confidence in his cooking almost got in the way of him becoming a member of the “Fab Five.” “I was thinking, ‘I’m not gay enough, I’m not enough of a chef. I’m not all of these things.’” Though Porowski still struggles with these anxieties from time to time, he says that these worries can be used to his advantage as well because he can “really get off on fear.”
Porowski credits a lot of his outward thinking to the show and the experiences he gets to be involved with through it. He uses the platform that has been given to him to speak on things that he values such as expressions of sexuality and mental health awareness. Porowski is breaking barriers with his lack of labels and will continue to serve as a role model for many who may be struggling with their own identities as well.
To see more from this interview, make sure to check out the full article here.
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