The coronavirus pandemic hit the entertainment industry hard. Movies and television shows had to shut down production with little warning in March in order to slow the spread of the virus, which meant many projects had to end early, or get postponed. Queer Eye, however, managed to release its latest season as planned on June 5, leaving many people wondering when Queer Eye Season 5 was filmed.
Fans of Queer Eye know it's a very hands-on show. The Fab Five head into their "heroes" lives to help them transform their wardrobe, grooming, home, culinary skills, and overall outlook on life. The men spend a ton of time with their heroes over the course of their week together, which means coronavirus-induced social distancing rules would make it essentially impossible to carry out their process as they normally would.
Luckily, the men didn't have to worry about socially distancing from their heroes to keep safe from the coronavirus while they filmed. It turns out, Season 5 was actually filmed all the way back in June 2019, long before the coronavirus pandemic became an issue for production.
In Season 5, the Fab Five traveled to Philadelphia to find their latest batch of people to help. Producers of Queer Eye started to hand out casting flyers in April 2019, giving them two months to find the right candidates to work with the Fab Five. In total, they selected 10 people for 10 episodes, making this the longest Queer Eye season to date.
Although Queer Eye was able to release Season 5 as scheduled, the series didn't completely avoid coronavirus-induced delayed. The Fab Five were actually already five days into filming Season 6 in Austin, Texas, when the cast went into quarantine.
There's no word on when Queer Eye Season 6 will be able to resume filming, not when it'll actually hit Netflix. Regardless of the timing, effects of the pandemic will be evident in the show. "Once we come back, there's still going to need to be some social distancing," Berk told Oprah magazine. "So, it's gonna be hard because all five of us are very much huggers... the very first thing we do is we go and hug."
While Season 6 of Queer Eye is still a bit up in the air, at least Season 5 of Queer Eye is on Netflix now.
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