Queer Eye's Antoni: "I was most comfortable with my body when I was in relationships with women."

welcome back to glamour unfiltered hosted by me Josh Smith and today we're joined by one fifth a query and the king 20% wait today in k7 relays already joined by Anthony how are you doing well I'm in London now you are here to promote Anthony in the kitchen yeah which is wait for it number two on the New York Times bestseller list right now but who is keeping tabs now because for you would you say that cooking and food go hand-in-hand with your South Karagias would you say the biggest luxury now is actually being in my own apartment sleeping in my own bed cooking in my own kitchen which that's the irony of the life that I have now actually cook a lot less than I used to and like connecting with myself through food is probably just focusing on one thing it's like the best thing that I can do for myself and your relationship with food guys hunters have on the relationship your family explained that journey to people out there who might not already yeah so I my dad especially we're both very obsessive about food like we can be eating one meal and talking about the next you know we didn't all get along but like when we sat around a table and like enjoyed a meal together that was the one time where we were all able to sort of break bread and and have some laughs and have some like nice positive time so well I mean the last like 18 months for you have been completely in the Sanitary right I mean if they haven't been normal no it's not a word I would use to describe it it was almost like overnight success for you wasn't it after years and years of trying and trying and trying how did you adjust to that I think I'm still trying to adjust to it like I only started meditating a few weeks ago and that was something that I haven't done for years that a lot of friends might have suggested that I do I like if I walk into a room and I see somebody who's like sad or upset I tend to take on their feelings and I could sort of like keep them if I get sad I stay sad a lot longer than I need to same with like happiness and so meditation is a good way of kind of like setting myself up in the morning if I do like 10 or 15 minutes and it just allows me to sort of like allow the feelings to come but then I let go of them like I don't have to like hold on to things as much this past week it's like we had cook book came out New York Times bestseller Emmys flying Londyn now flying a mantra it's like there's always another thing on the horizon and it and it gets challenging sometimes like I really want to appreciate every moment and like kind of like embrace it and accept the fact that if I get up and I'm feeling like I'm 60% and I'm just gonna be a hundred percent of that 60 percent I don't have to like try to compensate or feel a certain way it's just like it's all about acceptance I think - what's your journey with your own self-acceptance been like the first thing that comes to mind is definitely probably my Polish heritage that's something that was a trickier one it felt normal to be polish when I was growing up and then I moved to West Virginia and suddenly you know people were asking about my name why was it so weird why did I speak three languages why was I bringing a lot of cabbage to school for lunch suddenly like the things that I kind of took for granted or the things that were just Givens like being Polish Canadians suddenly I felt kind of like embarrassed about it so I kind of pushed it away for the while even to the point of like I almost fully forgot polish and French and the three years that I was there so it's been this like sort of river of like love/hate and and now I'm literally like showcasing polish recipes and hangover cures in my cookbook and it's sort of like being polish is something that I'm actually really proud of not just accepting it but actually embracing it and like honoring where I come from and my ancestors and all that other stuff how does it how does it make you feel to be in that community and kind of feel like an outsider it's hard I mean it's it's really it's a very strange thing to suddenly feel embarrassed about something that you never really paid attention to you get socialized into being embarrassed about things that you shouldn't be about and for some people it's like body image sexuality heritage I think it comes in a lot of different forms and shapes when did you start to deal with that I would say when I actually met people in my community who I can identify with I think it's like attaching yourself to a tribe or people with like-minded interests I hear a lot about that in the LGBTQIA community as well especially like in the u.s. we have a thing called GSA a Gay Straight Alliance and kids feel a lot less lonely when they find people who are like them so that they don't feel like they're the only one going through whatever it is that they're going through do you think sexuality made that harder for you or did it make it a bit more comfortable I think part of me if I'm fully honest I always knew that I was interested in guys but at the same time I had relationships with women where I was really happy and I was actually in love with women so I knew it was one of those situations where it was like when I find the right one I'm gonna know it's time and that happened maybe in like my early mid-20s being bullied for being gay or being called the F for it isn't something that I really experienced because it was just assumed that I was straight even when I was in a long-term relationship with a guy it was just I worked at a restaurant for several years and people just assumed I was straight until he came in one day and it was like oh yeah as a boyfriend what made it more complicated was the fact that I didn't feel comfortable identifying as a certain title the idea of like if you don't belong to a certain group they don't have control over you and you can be free to do whatever the hell it is you want I listen to strange music like I didn't listen to pop music like all of my friends did I was always into like the darkest Johnny Cash when I was like 12 years old so like edgy really yeah I'm edgy so I my interests were always kind of different but I I did enjoy that part I think with the relationships it was kind of it was kind of the same thing I knew that I didn't want to be considered either like bisexual or gay or hetero Sat like it just didn't the closest thing I think is just like queer or fluid if we're gonna have to give it a name yeah I feel like that's what the future is with talking about your own experience has it helped you overcome that stuff by talking about it because you you said before you go to therapy and do these things or if I have something that I like a thought that I have or something and I share it with my therapist and then she'll be like oh yeah like god this is actually a common thing for guys your age to experience this and suddenly it's like oh you realize that you're not alone which i think is kind of nice and humbling as well especially in my early 20s and my late teens I always thought like I'm the only one who's experiencing what it's like to have a family torn and like child of divorce and like being fluid and and whatever I was experiencing I was always like oh like get me on the cross like I'm the only one well I find really amazing about you is you set this thing to me when we spoke last time we said I never used to post these half-naked pictures until I came into query and that was a weird adventure for me anyway and I think the whole Internet is firstly these tips day in day out but what is your own relationship with body image been like throughout your whole life would you say I think I was most comfortable with my body when I was in a relationship with women because there wasn't a sense of comparison it's like we were different and so I didn't really look at myself it was my first relationship with a guy where I kind of looked at myself and I was like oh like my biceps aren't as big as his and like my legs are longer like I wish my torso were longer and since the show came out I have like super cut down on dairy on the amount that I that I have and that's actually like changed my body a lot and I'm somebody who loves cheese but also being on camera all the time it's suddenly like you see yourself in an angle and it's sort of like what is that chin line you know I have days where I wake up and I just feel like human garbage and I'm like bad like I just eat vegetables and like try to eat plant base and go to the gym twice in a day and then I have days where I'm like I'm feeling really good about myself I'm gonna destroy two burgers today and finish the day off with pizza and a milkshake and maybe have a chocolate bar that thing you just said about the body is so interesting because I think that's what's giving me a body complex is being with boys because then you let you like because you can do that direct comparison right and it's such a mind it is without even realizing because that's I think a trick these days is that all these people talk about like self-care and self-love and like taking care of yourself but I think that it's also equally if not even more important to be of service and to actually do something for somebody else which is one story which I would really want to bring up actually where you talked about when you did this episode with Tommy and it was like the hardest thing for you to film you said because you were going through quite a lot of stuff at the time and she said to you everybody calls me mama but especially you need to call me mama and then tan which she then picked you up at the end of that day of filming and then looked after you like what was that narrative like for you we'd gone through it was five months that we were living in Atlanta we're away from our homes sometimes you can like completely get emotional over something that has actually nothing to do with what you're doing but it's just like excuse me like everything kind of catching up with you and just the thought of like the seasons coming to an end looking back at like my relationship with my parents and my siblings it's like the dynamics have shifted so much where I'd be close with one one year and then another I don't speak to one for a few years and it's been like you know like my father I wasn't close with him growing up and now we speak several times a day probably more often than we should maybe not more than we should we talk a right amount like that was a mother who expressed pure unconditional love and she didn't always and she's somebody who like kind of changed her mind and I also got emotional by the fact that like there is something so inspiring and the possibility of change like we're all capable of changed what do you think the shades to what you bought brother heads I'd always wanted to have a brother and I've I'd lied in elementary school to several friends mom's saying that my mother was pregnant that I was gonna be a big brother well like I always wanted to have a brother it's the closest thing to it because it is like family like we're all experiencing this like weird phenomenon together we are in it we get to vent to each other we all experience Fame and public life together and that's something special like nobody can take that away from you what do you think they've taught you about yourself I was very shy when I started doing the show and I didn't necessarily feel I feel like I'd tricked everyone into getting on the show I wasn't enough of a chef I wasn't gay enough and so I felt the need to sort of prove myself and I would like overcompensate with certain things I never wanted to mistake cockiness with confidence but now I think I understand what the difference is a little better and I can come into a room and I can address my needs before I used to have to pee before something and I wouldn't say anything cuz I didn't want to upset anyone and now I can just be like I gotta go and I just go it's like simple little things like that that I used to like really put myself in like tremendous amounts of discomfort so as not to ruffle any feathers and now I'm a lot more comfortable being like oh these are my needs what do you think is the thing that they've helped you free the mice I think they just got me to be fully comfortable with who I am and the fact that like the confidence in knowing that I don't have to try to be funnier or be smarter like be honest and real because that's sort of that's what we're asked to do but anyone who's watching this right now who is resonating with the things you said most importantly struggling to know who you are and stuff acceptance what kind of message would you want to give to them what kind of advice I think yeah if you're not if you're not practicing self-acceptance and I feel like it's you don't really know who you are because if you get to know who you are and what your interests are like that should be good enough lean into things that you're passionate about whether it's music or food or anything cultural or the people that you hang out with I love how I love people I love that I love being around people I tell you what you mean because I get so much stuff from my best friends like that I want to see give me the passion totally every single time that's those times where they come over you know you put on some Maggie Rogers light up a couple of candles and just like whether it's existential conversations or just talking [ __ ] it's sort of like wow like we're grownups and we get to a lot of us have families and we get to have like our chosen family and have our best friends come over and hear about how awful their week was and how they got fired and what dysfunctional relationship Cynthia's and again that that's no shade towards Cynthia's I'm not generalizing that Cynthia's are in bad relationships but you know what I mean we all have a Cynthia in our life or we are Cynthia who knows I'm thinking about the self-care that you were mentioning before how that can be a little selfish if you do too much of it if you like lean in too much and just remember that there are other people out there that you should be connecting with we're not meant to be alone 100% and he doesn't love a good the existential chat all right I love what I'll be someday getting that little chat in there you go well thank you so much for the Maine say thank you for having and guys Anthony in the kitchen out now available now get it well it's hot for more glamour and filters episodes of such inspiring people as Anthony ding ding ding ding that's me that's him make sure you subscribe to the glamour UK channels now we'll see you in two weeks for another edition of glamour and filtered

Channel: Glamour Magazine UK

Views: 300,907

Rating: 4.9665294 out of 5

Keywords: Glamour, Glamour Magazine, Glamour Magazine UK, Fashion, Beauty, Lifestyle, Celebrity, Queer Eye, Antoni Porowski, Queer Eye Antoni, Queer Eye Cast, Queer Eye Book, Tan, Jonthan, Karamo, Bobby Berk, Antoni, Netflix, Netflix's Queer Eye, Antoni Porowksi boyfriend, Antoni Porowski relationship, Antoni Porowski interview, Antoni Porowski body, Antoni queer eye topless

Id: IEchnHoJfnw

Length: 13min 3sec (783 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 08 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/ANONYMOUS1057]

K, Antoni is freaking hot!! He is probably one of the sweetest people ever!

[u/filiperg]

Such an interesting guy!

[u/ANONYMOUS1057]

Aww really that is sad.

[u/Postcardtoalake]

This was so helpful and relatable, especially starting off with the days of being at 60% and trying your best In that 60% and acceptance. I relate so much to his Polish experience. I'm a lez Russian with hella body image issues first generation immigrant/ex-pat (why are Americans always ex-pats but everyone else is an immigrant?!), and living with my culture inside of me and engaging with it is huge despite not engaging with my homophobic and body dysmorphic family of origin.

And the importance of interdependence instead of the US obsession with self and getting out of self to heal self-obsession (despite it being AA-ish): "a trick these days is that all these people talk about self care and self love...but I think it's equally if not more important to be of service; to actually do something for somebody else." YES. Studies that are over 20 years old that I read in undergrad show that engaging with others ends up making people feel significantly more relaxed and happier than being alone watching TV does.

"We're not meant to be alone" THANK YOU ANTONI

[u/funkychick78]

Is it really shallow and bad that although I was totally moved and again inspired by Antoni’s works and answers during that interview I was also absolutely literally obsessed by just how absolutely gorgeous he is 💕💕literally transfixed on his gorgeous eyes and lips 🙈🙈 sorry just need to know if I’m the only shallow one who is absolutely obsessed by just how gorgeous he is