I believe you've been in a relationship for 10 years now?
Ted: Actually, 13. We measure that from our first date. So our first date was St. Patrick’s Day 1993.
St. Patrick’s Day is what?
St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday celebrating Irish Americans, Irish people. It happens in March or April. You don’t do St. Patrick’s Day in the Philippines?
No, no.
Oh! It’s just really an excuse to drink a lot!

What’s your view on same-sex marriage?
My view on same-sex marriage is that gay and lesbian relationships are exactly as meaningful and profound and valuable as straight relationships and therefore I believe that I deserve exactly the same privileges from the state institution that anybody in the United States has. And for anyone to deny me that is disgusting.

That having been said, I’m talking about the United States. It’s different in every country. This has nothing to do with anybody’s religion. This has to do with I live in a diverse, democratic, elected nation in which... You know, I pay taxes, I deserve the same privileges. When you’re married in the United States there are like 1,000 privileges that you get. Whether it’s the right to inherit from your spouse when they pass away, or the right to visit your partner when he’s sick in the hospital, those rights aren’t guaranteed when you’re not married. So you can see that it makes me very upset.

That having been said, the gay marriage issue is one of the worst things to happen to gay people in the United States in a long, long time, because it happened before the culture was ready for it and gay marriage is now being exploited in a really disgusting way by far-Right politicians like the current occupant of our White House. (Laughter) And it played a major role in getting him elected the last time he got elected—which is the only time he was elected. (Laughter)

And it’s really sad that the gay issue came up when it did because it scared people, and politicians are exploiting that fear and using that to drive a wedge between people and, rather than talking about ways to make our country better and ways to make the world better, they waste all this time dividing people over this issue. What would’ve been best, we probably should’ve done it in steps. We probably should’ve started with civil unions and then moved on to marriage. But the issue came up in Massachusetts Supreme Court and it was thrust upon the whole country—I’m babbling but I’ll stop soon— (Laughter)

So what’s your boyfriend like?
His name is Barry Rice. Barry’s very patient. He’s put up with me for a very long time. He is an interior designer and he was a journalism professor. He got tenure at a university in Chicago and then promptly quit so he could move to New York so we could do “Queer Eye.” So, he loves me very much and I love him very much.

Does he cook?
He’s a terrific cook. He’s more of a baker. He loves to cook, but he’d rather have me cook. So he makes cookies and pies.
Okay. He does all the desserts.
Yeah, he’s better at desserts than I am. That’s his claim to fame. He’s a great-looking guy with great blue eyes. He’s actually coming here. He’s joining me here tomorrow (Friday).
Ooh, that’s cool.
Tomorrow night, we’re going to see the Philippines. And we’re going to travel to Vietnam and Thailand.

Did you ever date a girl?
Yeah, I did. I came out a little late. I didn’t come out officially until I was 26, which is really late these days. I didn’t kinda figure out that I was gay until my early 20s, which sounds stupid, especially to kids now. But I grew up in a conservative state in the midwest of the United States where it was not okay to be gay. There were no out gay actors, politicians, baseball players, nobody. The only gay images you saw in our culture were drag queens and people in strange leather outfits in the San Francisco Gay Pride parade. And all those people are great!

You know, we are a crazy, weird group of people in a lot of ways, but when you’re growing up in Indiana, that doesn’t look like you. Unless you are a drag queen or an aspiring leather person. And I just wasn’t. Role models matter a lot. So that’s one of the reasons that it’s so exciting to be out and gay on television. And we get a lot of letters from young gay people who tell us that it helps make them feel like they have things to look forward to, whether they want to be a drag queen or they want to be something else—an accountant... I don’t know. (Laughter)

In “Queer Eye,” do you have clashes of egos?
No, we all know who has the big egos! (Laughter) We don’t need to clash about it. I think the best way to characterize it is that we’re like brothers and so you fight a little bit, but we have a really interesting relationship with each other where, you know, each of the five of us has irritated the rest at one time or the other and you get over it.

How do you get over that?
Well, let’s see. Sometimes, it’s somebody jumping in front of you so they can be on camera and sometimes the way to deal with that is grab them by the shoulder and physically throw them to the ground! (Laughter) And then you’re okay. But I think mostly, you know, they’re excited. I mean, you could see if you saw the five of us downstairs, everybody’s mind’s going blah blah blah! Everybody’s got something they wanna say and they wanna be sure they have the chance to say it. Five people is a lot of people to have on a TV show like this. We try... I mean, we all love each other and respect each other a lot, it’s kinda hard to hold back and let everybody get their little jabs in.

But are there rivalries?
I don’t feel like we have any kind of rivalry because the five of us each has separate categories to work in, which, thank God, I mean, you know, if we had two food people or two fashion people, it could really get ugly. And everyone’s really respectful of those boundaries. I mean, Thom, for example, is a great cook. He’s a great entertainer, he entertains all the time. Actually, he knows how to cook, I think, but he doesn’t really do it. He just makes drinks.

Do you bring food to the set? Do you cook for the group when you tape?
Actually, more often than not, it’s Barry who makes peanut-butter cookies and I bring them to the set so we don’t eat them all ourselves and get really fat. (Laughter) But I often cook on the show. Almost every episode, I cook on the show. Actually, the biggest problem that I have is they’re always eating the food before I have the chance to... “No, that’s a prop! That’s not your dinner, Thom.”

Among the four guys, who would you date?
None of them. That’s like asking me, which one of my brothers would I date. It’s not like that... I’ve seen most of them naked, and all of them nearly naked. And it’s, um, it’s very much like a fraternal relationship that way. I know too much about them to want to date any of them! (Laughs)

Are they all in relationships right now as well?
All of them, except Carson and Jai who are single. So if this comes out while we’re still in the Philippines, it’s rooms 3907 and 3905. (Laughter)

Who do you think among them needs help in the kitchen department?
Um, well... everybody’s so different and, you know, Jai is 27 and single and dating and nobody wants to cook when they live by themselves, unless they’re cooking for their date. So I wouldn’t even expect him to be interested in that. Thom is so busy. He loves entertaining, he loves having people over, he has parties all the time and he has a weekend house, he’s always throwing parties, but there are other people in his life that are better suited to cooking. Carson, I think, makes a great peach cobbler. And I think he might cook one other thing, but he’s just not that interested in it. Kyan, I don’t know if he cooks.

Is it hard to teach straight guys about wining and dining?
Some more than others. I mean, there are a lot of straight guys who are terrific cooks and who are very romantic and who understand that dating or special nights with your wife is about her and making her feel special and doing little romantic things, like flowers and all the obvious stuff. Or crazy, surprising stuff like, what she’s into. That said, I mean, we’ve had a couple of guys in the show where all I asked him to do was make... I literally had an episode where I asked the guy to make a gin and tonic. And he ruined it. It’s pretty self-explanatory. It’s gin and tonic and ice, lime—how do you screw that up? (Laughter) But we also had an episode where I had a guy make molé, which is a Mexican sauce from the Oaxacan region and it has, like, 75 ingredients. It’s really difficult to make. I mean, that was a little unreasonable.

What’s your favorite cuisine?
I like different kinds of food. My first choice would probably be Italian, but when I say that I don’t mean any particular dishes. I mean the idea of Italian food, which is very simple, very fresh, everything natural, lots of herbs, lots of tomatoes, lots of fresh seafood, olive oil. Oh, you know. But the great cuisines of the world are clearly French and Chinese. We’re actually very excited to go to Vietnam because the food in Vietnam is so unbelievable, we’re so excited. Thai food is unbelievable. But it’s probably French, Italian... and a sort of Pan-Asia, but it’s a lot of that. And there are some exciting foods coming out of South America.

Are you an adventurous eater?
To a certain point. I actually love a lot of different food.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve eaten?
You know what, I’m not very interested in eating things like organs or insects. (Laughter) And a lot of people try to be brave and say they love to eat weird stuff like that. Usually, that’s food you eat because you have no other choice. Now, I don’t want to insult anybody... There are probably a lot of food that are traditional in the Philippines, but there are probably a lot of food that are traditional in America that would seem very strange to people here, and so, one of the things I love about food is that you could learn so much about other cultures, just like eating, without even traveling. One of the things I love about traveling is finding amazing food. I can’t wait to eat myself silly in the Philippines.