SURPRISED BY FATHERHOOD Queer Eye’s Karamo Brown reveals his family joy
y life is a sensationalised roller-coaster,” Karamo Brown says with a laugh. His book, Karamo: My Story of Embracing Purpose, Healing, and Hope, details his difficult childhood with a dad who battled addiction, success on MTV’S The Real World in 2004, to
In a new memoir, the Queer Eye star opens up about his unlikely path to fame and family
Mhalf-brother, who joined the family in 2007, he returned to showbiz and landed the role on Queer Eye in 2017. He’s a happy man – and it was fatherhood, he says, that saved him.
In an exclusive excerpt from his memoir, we look at the journey that began with his first day in ninth grade at a brand-new school in Houston, after his parents separated. I walked to my locker, and the minute I got there, I walked up to the locker next to mine. She had the most beautiful brown eyes. I said, “My name’s Karamo. Would you like to be friends?” Nothing about me was sexually attracted to her. I was like, This is my first friend in this massive school. He and the girl, whose name was Stephanie Brooks, became best pals. I told Stephanie I was gay, but I don’t think she truly understood. Or maybe she didn’t believe me or care. Yet people had expectations because we spent so much time together. We decided, “Let’s just be boyfriend and girlfriend.” One day they were hanging out in Brown’s living room. Stephanie said, “We should start making out.” As a young man of 15 who had never kissed anybody, I had a natural curiosity. So I shyly replied, “OK, let’s try it.” It wasn’t that first awkward kiss you hear about – it went smooth, and it felt good. Next thing you know, she took off my shirt, and I took off her shirt. My mind was saying, You don’t want this, but my body was saying, This is the first time someone is touching you? We’re gonna react.
The sex lasted a total of two-and-a-half minutes. I ran to my room, thinking, What just happened? At this point, my body caught up with my mind, and it was like, Nope! Never again! We stayed best friends. A few months later Stephanie’s
“You have a child who is going to need you” —Brown’s sister
family moved; Karamo eventually moved too, to his dad’s in Florida. I didn’t know how to reach her, she didn’t know how to reach me. I went on to Florida A&M [uni] and then moved to LA and got on The Real World. I never thought of Stephanie again. He partied and drank hard in college and moved on to “using drugs excessively” – mostly ecstasy and cocaine – as the showbiz career he’d dreamed of was taking off. Returning home one night in 2006 “in a sort of stupor … from the drugs”, he found a stack of papers on the step outside his apartment. On the front page was Texas Attorney General’s Office. The second page read, “Subpoena for Back Child Support.” I thought, Ashton Kutcher is inside my house. I’m getting punked! Then I saw “Stephanie Brooks” in the paperwork. I literally spat out the juice I was drinking. The court papers sought $327,000 in child support for a boy, Jason, born in 1996. Now I was fully freaking out. Do I have a kid? I just kept thinking, How? He flew to Houston for a paternity test. There, his sister insisted he get clean before the test – and stay that way. She said, “You have a child who is potentially going to need you: you have to get your s**t together.” I stayed in her house under her supervision. The report proving Brown’s paternity of Jason also listed Stephanie’s address. He drove there. Stephanie cried when she saw him and they hugged. All the anger and confusion went away. I was looking at my best friend again. He learned it wasn’t Stephanie who had sent the court papers. When she applied for welfare benefits for Jason and her children from another past relationship, state officials had tracked down the father listed on the birth certificate. She wasn’t coming after me for my money. Some clerk took it upon himself to find me. A little voice in my head was saying, Karamo, you don’t have to do this. You’re a child, and you’re supposed to go in there and raise a child? Run for your life. At the same time, I thought, “What if he needs me?” Inside, Stephanie’s whole family packed the tiny apartment. She called, “Jason! Come out here! Your dad’s here.” Jason slowly walked around the corner. There’s something about the first moment of seeing your child. All the pieces of me that I felt were missing got sewn up the minute I saw his face. I looked at this little fourth grade boy, and I thought, I can do this. Father and son left for one-on-one time at a bowling alley near Rice University. Everybody freaked out, because Karamo from The Real World had come in. Everyone started yelling, “Karamo! Come drink with us!” A girl wanted to get me in a photograph and she pushed Jason to get to me. My fatherly instincts took over. “Do not push my kid,” I told her loudly. Brown upended his life, moving to Texas, finding a job in social services and committing to sobriety. He also went into “full daddy mode.” I rearranged my schedule so I could take Jason to school and pick him up. I met with his teachers. I began volunteering at the school. The phrase “helicopter dad” doesn’t do justice to my behaviour! Jason thrived. At the end of his fifth-grade year, Stephanie gave Brown custody – on the condition he “keep us as a family.” Stephanie’s other son, Christian later also moved in with “Uncle Karamo.” One morning, Brown called Stephanie and said, “How about I become Christian’s legal guardian, just to get him back on the right path?” Christian came back and I said, “Your mother and I talked. Would you like to live here permanently?” He said yes and jumped into my arms. When I called my mother and told her the news, she said, “I always knew that would happen. We all saw that you had two sons. You just didn’t know.”
By Breanne L. Heldman ■