Chef Stuart O’Keeffe Recalls Queer Eye Casting Before He Was Replaced by Antoni Porowski: ‘A Missed Opportunity’

Stuart O’Keeffe was almost a member A strange eye‘s Fab Five.

On Wednesday’s episode of his Hurrdat Media podcast Don’t let Stuchef and cookbook author revealed for the first time that he was originally cast in the Netflix reboot of the Bravo series before he was unexpectedly replaced by Antoni Porowski.

“I was actually cast,” O’Keeffe, 42, said of the series, produced by Scout Productions. “Like, I was one of the Five.”

“The worst thing is that I found out on Instagram that I didn’t get it,” he added, describing a video showing Porowski finding out he got the part. “I thought, ‘Okay, I’m just going to cry for the next year.’ ”

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The culinary star of Irish origin also shared a photo of himself posing A strange eye starring Jonathan Van Ness, Karamo Brown, Bobby Berk and Tan France.

The picture was taken after the producers told them they had made a series, O’Keeffe claims.

“They came in. ‘You’re the Fab Five,'” O’Keeffe recalled, explaining that there were two groups of guys, and Porowski was in the other. “I was like, ‘Holy shit.’

But the moment for O’Keeffe didn’t last long.

Although he clicked with Brown, 43, and Berk, 42 ​​— and was told filming would start in a month — he began to suspect something was up when he learned everyone else had their own contracts. “[I was] like, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ ” he said. “And they’re like, ‘Oh, we’re working on it. We’re working on it.’ I said, ‘Okay, it’s okay. Like, whatever.’ ”

Stuart O’Keeffe on ‘Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen’.

Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty

Karamo Brown says he, Bobby Berk and Jonathan Van Ness weren’t invited to Antonio Porowski’s bachelor party

Then, during the arranged group dinner, France did not show up. “The other four are working, and I’m like, ‘What? Why isn’t he coming to dinner?'” O’Keeffe recalled. “So I said, ‘Something’s going on. Somebody knows something. He was a bit of a dick. And I said, ‘Oh, this is weird.’ So the four of us went to dinner at Silver Lake, talking about how excited we were.”

Afterward, O’Keeffe claimed he received a call saying he had to go to another audition and meet with Netflix executives.

“Two days later, I was pulled,” O’Keeffe said. “And Antoni gets pulled in.”

A Netflix representative did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

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‘Queer Eye’ stars Jonathan Van Ness, Bobby Berk, Antoni Porowski, Tan France and Karamo Brown in 2018.

Rob Kim/Getty

As for why he thinks it didn’t work out, O’Keeffe said he can only speculate, but stated that while he had previously worked with the producers and was told they wanted him on the show, Netflix thought otherwise.

“My agent called me and said, ‘Look, I know this sounds like total bullshit—— but they said you did too many things,'” O’Keeffe said. “Like, I was on Today show, I was on Rachel Raybecause I had a cookbook and I had a couple of shows before, while the other four didn’t, so they wanted everyone to be on the same level.”

“That’s a poor excuse for a penalty, I guess I’ll take it,” he said.

Another theory put forth by O’Keeffe was that Ted Allen, one of the originals A strange eye star, insisted that the producers hire Porowski, who was working as his assistant at the time.

“We’ll never know,” O’Keeffe said.

Stuart O’Keeffe 2021.

Paul Archuleta/Getty

Eventually, O’Keeffe — who appeared on the Food Network Chopped and Beverly Hills Private Chefs — he noted that he was fine with the outcome. “It was a missed opportunity for me, but you know what, it all worked out,” he said.

And he insisted that he bore no ill will toward Porowski, even as he shied away from the fact that Porowski had no culinary training. “I didn’t cross paths with him,” O’Keeffe said. “Obviously he was there. Nice guy, all good.”

O’Keeffe’s news comes amid reports of tensions on set A strange eye among the Fab Five, which reportedly led to Berk’s departure.

(Berk has since been replaced by HGTV’s Jeremiah Brent, who will debut in the upcoming Season 9.)

Jonathan Van Ness accused of having ‘anger issues’ on A strange eye Set: Report

Jeremiah Brent; Bobby Berk.

Dia Dipasupil/Getty; Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage

Tan France denies trying to replace Bobby Berk with Jeremiah Brent A strange eye

Earlier this month, Rolling stone released a report in which seven production sources claimed Van Ness, 36, was difficult to work with. Van Ness has not commented on the allegations and did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment

In addition, the piece included claims that France “campaigned to replace Berk” with Brent – something he managed to do with the “alleged support” of actor and friend Porowski. But France (40) denied it.

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O’Keeffe, for his part, said he didn’t talk to Berk about any of this, and was only speculating about his experiences with Van Ness (“He knew he was a star,” O’Keeffe said) and France, who described as a loner.

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Source: HIS Education