Bobby Berk has seen a lot, but a $100,000 surprise on his new HGTV show made his jaw drop

Nobody does a jaw-drop reaction like Bobby Berk. It’s only surprising when you assume he’s probably seen it all after eight seasons traveling the world as the interior design expert on Netflix’s reboot of “Queer Eye”; writing his 2023 book, “Right at Home: How Good Design is Good for the Mind”; making many TV appearances (including a Taylor Swift video) and selling pretty much anything to make your home shine on BobbyBerk.com.

But in his new HGTV series “Junk or Jackpot?”, premiering Friday at 9:30 p.m. Pacific, genuine reactions come often from Burke as he enters the homes of Los Angeles collectors and sees not only rooms jam-packed with action figures, pinball machines, puppets, marionettes and more, but also some jackpot items just sitting on a bookshelf. In one episode, for example, a collector shows Berk a trading card he has that is appraised in the $100,000 range. “I’m pretty sure I said, ‘What the f—?’ though I assume it was bleeped because it’s HGTV,” says Berk from his Los Angeles home. “I’m used to Netflix, where I could say whatever I wanted. But, yeah, that was just crazy to me.”

Reactions aside, the real marvel on “Junk or Jackpot?” is watching an enthusiastic Berk swoop into people’s homes to help them learn how to come to terms with a collecting hobby that has grown into something that’s stifling homes and putting a damaging strain on relationships. “Obviously, I’m not a therapist. I’m a designer, even though in our field, we often make the joke that we’re not just designers, we’re marriage counselors,” he says.

But Berk, born in Houston and raised in conservative Mount Vernon, Mo., is a self-taught pro at identifying what isn’t working and doing everything possible to fix it, including in his own life. Case in point: Berk, not feeling safe coming out in Mount Vernon, left home at 15 and bounced around for several years in various cities, never finishing high school. “From 15 to 22, I moved around and can’t even count the amount of places I had to move around to just due to finances and situations going on in life,” he recalls.

Eventually, he landed in New York City and worked for stores like Restoration Hardware, Bed Bath & Beyond and Portico before he opened his first online store in 2006 and first physical store in Soho in 2007. Soon thereafter, Berk was racking up appearances on networks like HGTV and Bravo before “Queer Eye” came calling in 2018 and took him to new heights, including his 2023 Emmy win for structured reality program. He also received an honorary degree from Otis College of Art and Design in 2022.

Now, with “Junk or Jackpot?” about to launch, the 44-year-old Berk spoke about how he was handpicked by pro wrestler and movie star John Cena for the show, the key to helping collectors let go of things that are weighing down their lives, and, after living many places and traveling the globe, where he considers home with husband Dewey Do and their mini Labradoodle, Bimini.

“I’m not a therapist. I’m a designer, even though in our field, we often make the joke that we’re not just designers, we’re marriage counselors,” Berk says.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

What are the origins of “Junk or Jackpot?” and what does John Cena have to do with it all?

I’ve been toying back and forth with HGTV for years, even when I was still on “Queer Eye,” but with my exclusivity with Netflix, I couldn’t do design shows with anybody else. We always just kept that line of communication open, so then when this specific opportunity came about, Loren Ruch, the head of HGTV, who’s unfortunately since passed, reached out. He said, “Hey, John Cena’s created the show for us and you’re the top of his list of who he wants it to host it.” John was a big “Queer Eye” fan, so I said yes. It shot here in L.A., which was really important to me. We were really lacking for entertainment jobs here in the city so that was a big plus for me to be able to bring jobs here to L.A. to all of our amazing crews.

And it’s not your typical design show. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with a typical design show and they do help people. But coming from “Queer Eye” where everyone we helped was because it was somebody deserving, somebody that was going through something and needed that extra boost in their life. That’s what this was with “Junk or Jackpot?”

Every single collector, as we’re calling them, had a story going on. With Patrick and Roger [in the premiere episode], Roger had moved out and their relationship was on the rocks because there was literally no space for Roger. With Carly and Johnny in another episode, they had a kid that they weren’t expecting to have in their early 40s, so it was a life-changing moment for them. Their priority needed to be their son, J.D.

I love the show because it was helping people at these moments in their life where they’re like, “We have this thing that we love and has brought us joy, but now this thing is actually starting to have negative things happening in our life.” I wanted to come in and really bring back the joyous part of their collection.

HGTV hasn’t given you a huge budget to revamp the homes and the collectors have to work themselves to sell off their collectibles to pay for the renovation. How did that angle come about?

It was a bit of therapy and I wanted the collectors to really realize that, yes, the collection that they have has value but this other thing that is happening in their life because of this collection has value, too. I wanted them to either be able to prove to themselves that what they were wanting to change in their life had more value than those things. Like with Patrick, Roger had a value.

I wanted them to go through the exercise of “You need to start parting with things.” And if you notice, I never pushed them to get rid of the most precious pieces of their collection. I pushed them to get rid of the things that often they had duplicates of but weren’t necessarily something like, “Oh, I got this as a child” or “somebody got this for me.” I wanted them to emotionally disconnect with those things so they could prioritize things better in life and in the future, they would have a lot easier time letting go even if I wasn’t there to push them.

Swatches and mood boards in Berk’s office. The host of “Junk or Jackpot?” says it is not your typical design show. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

How do you consider budget with the collectors? In one episode, you choose to cover a brick wall instead of tearing it down and building a new one.

The homeowners are the ones footing the bill for this, because again, a portion of this is the exercise of letting go. To your point, if we had just come in at HGTV and said, “Here’s all the money!” They’re like, “All right, I have no motivation to get rid of anything.” I wanted to make sure we made budget-conscious decisions and I think that’s also a really important thing to share with people at home that you don’t always have to go out and knock out a fireplace if you hate the material. You can do a thing like micro cement and you can completely change it for a minimal cost.

What would you say you learned from shooting the first season of “Junk or Jackpot?”

I wouldn’t say I learned anything necessarily new, but it was reaffirmed to me the emotional attachment and mental health aspect that your space and design can have on you, either in a good way or a bad way.

In the bad way, your house becomes so cluttered and overwhelmed with something that used to spark joy for you, but it’s now having an effect on not only your mental health, but your relationships with other people. On the other hand, the difference in your mental health just redoing that space, reorganizing that space, reclaiming that space can have on your mental health and your relationships not only with yourself, but with your family and your friends.

Vivian, who collects Wonder Woman memorabilia, her friends stopped coming over because there was just nowhere to sit. Her best girlfriend used to come in from Vegas all the time, where she lives, and she would spend the night and now she’s like, “I just can’t anymore because I’m surrounded literally. It’s too much and I just can’t do it anymore.” You see how just changing your space really can change your life.

“I wanted to make sure we made budget-conscious decisions and I think that’s also a really important thing to share with people at home, that you don’t always have to go out and knock out a fireplace if you hate the material,” Berk says.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Season 1 is set in Los Angeles but assuming you get more seasons, would you want to do other cities or countries?

I personally would always love just to keep doing L.A. I live there and with “Queer Eye” for eight years, we traveled all over America. That being said, this is a very niche show, so it might be hard to continue doing it in the same city season after season, so we probably will have to go to other cities, and I’d be fine with that. But I would at least like another season or two in L.A. After spending the last eight years filming “Queer Eye,” I like being home.

That said, you have lived in New York, you’re in L.A. now and you also have a place in Portugal. Where do you call home?

L.A. is definitely home for me. Portugal’s great, but L.A. is definitely home. Although the more time we spend in Southeast Asia, specifically Vietnam, since my husband’s originally from there, that also feels like home. I believe in reincarnation, and I was definitely from over there in my last life. Like when I landed in Vietnam, in China, anywhere in Southeast Asia — I just feel very at home.

“Queer Eye” was such a roller coaster for all you guys but what are your reflections now that it is behind you? Were you able to enjoy it at the time?

Yes and no. It was an amazing roller coaster. I enjoyed most of it, but there were times where we were just exhausted. I don’t know if you know the flight app “Flighty,” but it tracks your flights and tells you how many hours you’ve been in planes every year and how many times you’ve been on the exact same plane. I was looking the other day at how much I flew in 2019. Keep in mind in 2019, five months of the year I was filming, so I wasn’t flying anywhere. So this was just seven months, and I flew 200 flights. I flew over 500,000 miles. I don’t miss that. That was a lot. But as much as I can remember of it, I look back with fondness.