No good deed goes unpunished.
If you ask Queer Eye star Karamo Brown, he’d say he genuinely had good intentions when it came to working with Professional Liar Sean Spicer on Dancing with the Stars.
But the moment the cast list was released for season 28, Karamo dug himself into a hole that he’s still very much trying to get out of.
If you’ll remember, Karamo originally responded to the casting of Sean via Twitter and wrote,
“I’ll tell you this… I’m excited to sit down w/ him and engage in a respectful conversations. Only way things get better is if we try to educate those who have different POV than us.”
Things only went downhill from there as Karamo continued to defend Sean calling him “a good guy” and “a friend.” He even said that he “was proud of him.”
Oy.
Since then, he’s backtracked. He’s claimed that he’s not actually friends with Spicer but rather wanted to be civil.
“I was just saying that, if we’re going to be on the same show, I’m going to have a respectful conversation with someone who’s different from me.”
Now, Karamo is trying yet again to explain his point-of-view and defend his decision to kill Sean Spicer with kindness.
In his new interview with Teen Vogue, Karamo addressed the controversy. He told the website,
“When it came to Sean Spicer, I knew that I could engage in conversations with somebody who I disagreed with completely politically. I don’t appreciate the fact that when [he was] in office, [he] lied to the American people and did do a lot of things to destroy the fabric of the country I love. But I knew that in this controlled environment of working with [Spicer] for almost 11 weeks, there’d be many opportunities for conversation.”
He added that he invited his trans friends to the set of DWTS and would invite Spicer to his trailer to meet them in the hopes that he’d meet more LGBTQ people and rethink his views. He added,
“I’m not saying that that is going to solve the problem, but it starts a conversation that begins with the heart versus the mind, where someone then can start to feel versus think when they make a decision.”
Karamo’s goals of building a bridge are certainly admirable. Incredibly naive, but admirable.
But Karamo struggled to convey this to fans during his time on DWTS and instead led us to believe that he was a defender, and perhaps even a friend, to someone who did despicable things to this country. It’s one thing to try and reach across the aisle and quite another to accept and even forgive someone who did vile things and never even had the good morals to apologize for them.
Karamo clearly has a good heart and definitely doesn’t deserve to be “canceled.” But a good heart can only take you so far, especially in these turbulent times.
Unfortunately, it seems that the time to reach across the aisle has passed. Now, it’s time for action.
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Feature photo courtesy of Netflix
