Bobby Berk is an American interior designer, television personality, and writer. The recipient of one
Primetime Emmy Award
The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Owned and operated by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the P ...
, and four nominations, he starred in the
Netflix
Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
series ''
Queer Eye'' as the interior design expert for its first eight seasons.
Early life
Berk was born in
Houston, Texas
Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
to a young mother and then adopted by his maternal aunt and her husband, Connie and Jerry Berk. He grew up in
Mount Vernon, Missouri in the middle of
Amish
The Amish (, also or ; ; ), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, church fellowships with Swiss people, Swiss and Alsace, Alsatian origins. As they ...
farm country.
Berk cites that being gay in the
Bible Belt
The Bible Belt is a region of the Southern United States and the Midwestern state of Missouri (which also has significant Southern influence), where evangelical Protestantism exerts a strong social and cultural influence. The region has been de ...
and attending an
Assemblies of God
The World Assemblies of God Fellowship (WAGF), commonly known as the Assemblies of God (AG), is a global cooperative body or communion of over 170 Pentecostal denominations that was established on August 15, 1989. The WAGF was created to provi ...
church throughout his childhood was difficult, and that he faced both internal and external
homophobia
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, Gay men, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, or ant ...
growing up.
Berk left home at the age of fifteen. He landed in
Springfield, Missouri
Springfield is the List of cities in Missouri, third most populous city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County, Missouri, Greene County. The city's population was 169,176 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 censu ...
, and got a job at
Applebee's in
Branson, sleeping in his car or staying with friends. He drove home for school as a sophomore and attended
Kickapoo High School for junior year. He then worked as a telemarketer for
MCI Communications
MCI Communications Corporation (originally Microwave Communications, Inc.) was an American telecommunications company headquartered in Washington, D.C. that was at one point the second-largest long-distance provider in the United States.
...
. It was through this job that he first met his biological father.
Just before he turned eighteen, he moved to
Denver
Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...
, Colorado, where he got a gig at the Bombay Company.
Career
Berk relocated to New York City in 2003.
He found employment at
Restoration Hardware and
Bed Bath & Beyond before moving on to Portico, a high-end home furnishing company. With no high school diploma or formal training he worked his way up to creative director.
After Portico folded, Berk launched his online store, Bobby Berk Home, in 2006,
opening his first store in
SoHo, Manhattan
SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall (SoHo), and ha ...
a year later.
Midtown Miami, Florida followed in 2010 as well as
Midtown Atlanta
Midtown Atlanta, or Midtown for short, is a Urban area, high-density commercial and residential neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The exact geographical extent of the area is ill-defined due to differing definitions used ...
, Georgia.
He later launched Bobby Berk Interiors + Design, specializing in interior design services, whose headquarters is in Downtown Los Angeles.
He appeared on television networks such as
HGTV
HGTV (an initialism for Home & Garden Television) is an American basic cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The network primarily broadcasts reality programming related to home improvement and real estate. HGTV Dream Home is an ...
,
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
,
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
, and
Bravo
Bravo(s) or The Bravo(s) may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music Groups and labels
* Bravo (band), a Russian rock band
* Bravo (Spanish group), represented Spain at Eurovision 1984
* Bravo Music, an American concert band music publishing compa ...
.
Through his businesses, Berk has his own line of wallpaper, furniture, and art.
In 2018, Berk began starring as the interior design expert on the
Netflix
Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
reality series ''
Queer Eye''.
During his time on ''Queer Eye'', he appeared alongside his castmates in
Taylor Swift
Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Known for her autobiographical songwriting, artistic versatility, and Cultural impact of Taylor Swift, cultural impact, Swift is one of the Best selling artists, w ...
's "You Need to Calm Down" music video. Berk announced in 2023 that he would be departing the series after its eighth season, which aired in January 2024. He elaborated on his decision when the season released, explaining that he had already planned his next projects and thus chose not to re-sign his contract upon Netflix's decision to renew ''Queer Eye'' a year after their original contracts ended in 2022.
In 2021, Berk competed in
season six of ''
The Masked Singer'' as the wild card contestant "Caterpillar". He was eliminated alongside
Willie Robertson as "Mallard" in the Group B semi-finals.
In 2022, Bobby was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from
Otis College of Art and Design
Otis College of Art and Design is a private art and design school in Los Angeles, California, United States. Established in 1918, it was the city's first independent professional school of art. The main campus is located in the former IBM Aero ...
.
Personal life
Berk and his husband Dewey Do, a
maxillofacial surgeon, met online in 2004 and married in 2012 "as soon as it was legal to get married". In July 2018, the couple moved to Los Angeles, California after living in New York City for over a decade.
In 2023, they began living part-time in Portugal with their dog Bimini, whom they adopted in 2021.
Berk endorsed
Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Ann Warren (née Herring; born June 22, 1949) is an American politician and former law professor who is the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States senator from the state of Massachusetts, serving since 2013. A mem ...
in the
2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries.
On June 23, 2020, Berk and ''Queer Eye'' co-star
Jonathan Van Ness
Jonathan McDonald Van Ness (born March 28, 1987), also commonly referred to by his initials J.V.N., is an American hairstylist, podcast host and television personality. He is best known as the grooming expert on the Netflix series ''Queer Eye ...
praised recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions which ruled that LGBT employment discrimination was a violation of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and United States labor law, labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on Race (human categorization), race, Person of color, color, religion, sex, and nationa ...
.
However, both of them still urged the United States Congress to pass the proposed
Equality Act, which Berk claimed would amend the Civil Rights Act so it "would really extend healthcare and housing rights."
Filmography
Music videos
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berk, Bobby
1981 births
20th-century American male artists
21st-century American LGBTQ people
21st-century American male artists
American adoptees
American expatriates in Portugal
American gay artists
American gay entertainers
American interior designers
American LGBTQ broadcasters
American television personalities
Artists from Houston
Interior design firms
LGBTQ designers
LGBTQ people from Missouri
LGBTQ people from Texas
Living people
People from Mount Vernon, Missouri
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Product designers