Rachel Zoe and her assistant/deputy stylist dude Brad Goreski have split up. Apparently, the split is amicable. Why is this news so devastating to me? Probably because Brad Goreski MAKES The Rachel Zoe Project. He’s the heart, the emotional center, the sweetness and the light. Without him, TRZP is just going to be an exercise in narcissism and manufactured coke drama. BRAD!!!!

“Bananas!” Celeb stylist Rachel Zoe and her bow-tie clad assistant Brad Goreski have sadly decided to go their separate ways, effective Oct. 1.

“I love Rachel and she’s taught me everything I know,” Goreski, 33, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “But there’s a point where either I do it now or I’ll never know what it’s like to spread my wings and soar.”

Breaking the news to Zoe about a month ago was nothing short of “major.”

“We couldn’t stop hugging and we couldn’t stop crying,” she says. “He did this with such class and elegance. And I get it. I just told him, ‘I’m here for you always.’”

Goreski is counting on that.

“I hope she’ll continue to teach me more and more,” he says. And while the dynamic duo’s frenzied pace has been constant fodder for Bravo’s The Rachel Zoe Project, filling Goreski’s designer shoes will be no easy feat.

“We have a relationship that’s not normal. I jump into bed with him and wake him up and we have these pow wows and he’s like, ‘Wow, I haven’t brushed my teeth,’” Zoe says. “I don’t want to hire somebody for the purpose of the show, we just got lucky. No one’s ever going to be Brad to me.”

For more of Zoe and Goreski’s exclusive interview, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE on newsstands Oct. 1

[From People]

I think – no, I know – Zoe is a major pill to work for. Yes, the perks are great, and yes, she’s actually pretty nice to her employees, but she’s not half as organized as she thinks she is, and she just seems like a time-sucker. Something that could easily take an hour to decide will take DAYS for Zoe.

Also – Zoe’s old deputy Taylor left last year under somewhat suspicious circumstances – although Taylor always maintained that the alleged “theft” drama was just manufactured for the show. So now Zoe is without the two people who really knew her job backwards and forward. Is this the end of TRZP?

Header: Brad & Rachel in 2009. Credit: WENN.