Jonathan Van Ness Opens Up About His Stress-Induced Second Butthole

Jonathan Van Ness has been under a lot of stress lately, most likely from that Rolling Stone “takedown” piece in March that claimed he was “abusive” and had “rage issues” while filming Queer Eye.

That, coupled with business trouble, led to the reality star — who is nonbinary and uses he/they/she pronouns — having so much stress that he “grew a second butthole called a fistula.” He first brought it up during a comedy show in Louisville back in December, but now he’s ready to share it with the world on his podcast, Getting Curious.

In an Instagram reel touting the episode, JVN writes that he invited a “legit butt doctor,” also known as a proctologist, to “learn about buttholes and maybe help others not feel stigma about their butt health.”

On Getting Curious, Van Ness chats with Dr. Evan Goldstein — or as they like to call him, “the Robin Hood of anal” — the founder and CEO of Bespoke Surgical, a first-of-its-kind health practice specializing in gay men’s sexual health and wellness. Dr. Goldstein is also the author of the new book, Butt Seriously: The Definitive Guide to Anal Health, Pleasure, and Everything In Between.

As for Van Ness, he’s had to take his anal health in his own hands after the rough few months he’s had. He first addressed the Rolling Stone piece on an episode of Jessie and Lennie Ware’s Table Manners podcast, saying, “There was this article that was written about Queer Eye and myself in March, but our whole Queer Eye family had first learned about this article in like December.”

Denying the allegations against him, he continued, referencing trouble with his haircare line, JVN Hair, “So I went from this bankruptcy to like, ‘Oh, there’s someone who’s gonna write an investigative takedown, expose piece about you that isn’t really based in reality but can certainly have a lot of things taken out of context to make you look as bad as possible. So that could drop any day now.'”

Van Ness said that he “was walking on eggshells” for three months waiting for the article to drop, and in addition to the social media backlash, forced him to internalize all the negativity. However, he’s come out of the other end — butt pun not that intended — and is ready to talk about it.