"If I’m honest, I think I’m left with more questions than answers," Antoni Porowski said this week as he began describing his first project after Queer Eye — a travel series that he is hosting and executive producing for National Geographic.
Best of the World With Antoni Porowski premieres June 7 on National Geographic and will stream the next day on Disney+ and Hulu. Porowski said he filmed episodes in Mexico City, London, Paris and New York City, and framed the series as a deliberate move into a solo role after nearly a decade in the public eye with the Netflix reboot of Queer Eye.
Porowski used the interview to push back on where attention landed as the Fab Five-era show wound down. "For anybody who’s paying attention to how all of that ended, I was sad that I felt like it served as a distraction in honoring the countless people who’ve worked on the show from day one up until the very end, and those who have come and gone — both in front of and behind the camera," he said.
He doubled down on the work’s intent: "I refuse to let however it ended be a distraction from the messaging because the messaging, I swear to you, was always real and always coming from a truthful place." Porowski said he is now in touch with only some of the cast, a remark that underscores the split between the public brand of the show and private relationships among its creators.
The backdrop is familiar: the Netflix reboot began airing in 2018 with Porowski alongside Jonathan Van Ness, Karamo Brown, Tan France and Bobby Berk. In recent months the franchise faced off-screen controversies that drew wide coverage — a 2024 Rolling Stone investigation into Jonathan Van Ness’ alleged behavior and Karamo Brown’s abrupt January withdrawal from a network morning segment, in which Brown said he had been "mentally and emotionally abused for years." Bobby Berk was replaced by Jeremiah Brent in Season 9.
Porowski declined to dwell on those headlines as an end in themselves, but he did not pretend they were irrelevant. "If I’m honest, I think I’m left with more questions than answers, but what I hope is that the people who honor the show understand the help that we did and the commitment we [had]," he said, articulating both frustration and a plea to separate the work from the noise.
On camera, Best of the World casts Porowski in a different role: guide, culinary observer and storyteller. He praised elements of his colleagues’ craft even while noting distance, telling an interviewer that "He did such a beautiful job. I know how much [he] is obsessed with preservation and attention." The series is positioned as a way for him to continue the empathetic, uplift-focused storytelling viewers associated with Queer Eye, but on his own terms and away from the ensemble dynamics.
The immediate consequence is straightforward: viewers will be able to judge Porowski’s solo vision when Best of the World debuts June 7 and when episodes appear on streaming platforms the following day. The larger consequence is less tidy. Porowski is relaunching his public persona around a travel-and-culture format while admitting that the last chapter of Queer Eye left relationships and answers unresolved.
He closed one subject with a quiet acknowledgement of uncertainty: "Who knows what the future holds?" For now, his answer is to let the new show speak for itself — a practical next step that advances his career while leaving the questions about what the off‑screen fractures meant for the cast unanswered by design.
