Below Deck Mediterranean‘s Captain Sandy Yawn laid down the law with Bri Muller and Ellie Dubaich by clarifying that neither of their jobs was safe.
During the Monday, July 29, episode of the hit Bravo series, Bri and Ellie’s feud became too much for chief stew Aesha Scott to handle on her own.
“I just spoke to both of them and basically everything that Bri says — Ellie has said the complete opposite. And she’s talking to me and she’s shaking and crying,” Aesha explained to Sandy. “They are both so convincing that I don’t know what the truth is. I don’t know what I am supposed to do now. My concern is what if we fire one and the other [is the problem]?”
Aesha asked Captain Sandy to step in, which put both Bri and Ellie’s future on Mustique at risk.
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“Just leave it with me. I am going to have the conversation,” the captain told Aesha. “Why can’t we just do our jobs?”
Sandy chose to reprimand Bri and Ellie at the same time. “Let me give you the big picture. We are here to do a job. We have to have respect in the workplace,” she told the stews. “If you two can’t work together. I can’t just let go of one, I have let you both go. I don’t know the full story and neither does Aesha. I am here to make sure that you can fix it and continue to do your job. Can you do that?”
Despite Sandy’s attempt to give them one last chance, Bri said she didn’t think she could work things out with Ellie, adding, “We both tried and it is impossible.”
Bri specifically cited an incident from earlier that same day.
“Today I didn’t feel like Ellie had my back. Because when I came back from my break, she purposefully didn’t do the cabins,” Bri added, which Ellie defended by saying she “had a lot of work” that kept her from housekeeping.
Bri pushed back at Ellie’s excuse — and that didn’t sit well with Sandy. “Don’t be mean. Because I don’t like that,” Sandy responded while Ellie noted that Bri has “completely disrespected” their captain.
“Do not because this will make me mad. Everyone here is replaceable,” Sandy reminded Bri and Ellie amid their back and forth. “You will be on the ferry going back. You both.”
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Earlier in the episode, Bri and Ellie’s tension was at an all time high due to a crew night out. Ellie was on a mission to flirt — and make out — with Joe Bradley in front of Bri.
“I just don’t understand why they have to rub it in my face. It’s like, ‘Do you want to test me? Silly bitch, why do that?’” Bri said while referring to her own hookup with Joe earlier in the season. “Especially if she was so annoyed when Joe and I hooked up. Not that I did it in her face. Because she was f—king sleeping.”
The next morning Bri and Ellie were clearly still at odds. Their issues regarding their mutual interest in Joe continued to affect how they worked together in the interior. Ellie specifically blamed Bri for trying to turn their crew members against her.
“I feel like I am cornered and everybody keeps believing Bri and her bulls—t. I need to say something so these people can understand what is actually going on,” she explained in a confessional. “Because they are looking at me sideways and thinking, ‘Is she a bad person? Is she doing something to Bri?’ And that’s not a comfortable environment for me.”
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As Bri kept making mistakes in the laundry room, Aesha revealed to the third stew that she considered letting her go. This weighed on Bri and ultimately led to her breaking down in front of Sandy about how Ellie’s behavior toward her affected her job.
“I feel like I can’t really stand up for myself. I just take it,” Bri told Sandy, who offered her some advice. “You have to get control of your emotions. And how you do that is be confident in who you are and what you do,” she said. “You have a choice. You chose to be here and you are here. Despite the circumstances happening around you, it is your choice how you respond. You can do this.”
Bri did stand up for herself when she felt set up by Ellie. When the guests went on an excursion with Aesha, Bri was sent on a two-hour break by her boss. When Bri returned, Ellie told her she only prepared the table for service and didn’t have time to clean any of the guest cabins.
“This is priority. I feel like you did this on purpose. I can’t even deal and I don’t want to talk to you right now if that is OK,” Bri said to Ellie, who was preparing to take her break and leave her to do all the work. “I could have set up lunch so easy. Don’t look at me with that shocked face. Go on your break, I have cabins to do. Don’t distract me, please just go. You can try to walk all over me but I am not going to take it anymore.”
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Ellie, however, fired back at Bri before the guests came back, adding, “Since you don’t know how boats work, second stew outranks you. That is who I am. You are unbelievable. I expect an apology when I come back, otherwise you are going straight to Captain Sandy.”
The drama got back to Sandy — who alerted Aesha. Once Aesha called the feud between her stews “one of the hardest management situations” she has been in, Sandy made the decision to get involved and have the awkward conversation with the stews mentioned above.
“I step in when there’s nothing else she can do,” Sandy clarified in a confessional. “That is usually when someone gets fired.”
Before the episode aired, Bri recalled how she felt being told that her and Ellie could both be fired. “You don’t understand how much anger and rage I had inside of my body,” she exclusively told Us Weekly. “I was like, ‘If I’m going down, she’s going down with me.’”
Bri noted that she didn’t blame Sandy, sharing, “Captain Sandy also handled that in a really good way. I don’t know what I would’ve done personally in that situation but I think she handled that situation quite well.”
Below Deck Mediterranean season 9 airs on Bravo Mondays at 9 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Peacock.
