Former Below Deck guest Anthony Drewitt-Barlow’s house has been raided by federal agents.
Drewitt-Barlow, who appeared on one episode of the hit Bravo series in 2021, had his home raided by Homeland Security agents in Tampa, Florida earlier this week,according to TMZ.
“Homeland Security Investigations Tampa did execute a federal search warrant at that location,” a spokesperson for Homeland Security Investigations Tampa told the outlet earlier this week. “As it is part of an ongoing investigation, we don’t have any additional information to release at this time.”
The outlet noted that the spokesperson added an additional statement, saying, “Anyone with knowledge of a potential victim of sex trafficking, or have been a witness to sex trafficking, in this case, should call the tip line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE.”
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Drewitt-Barlow has not been arrested or charged with any crime in connection with the raid. He has also not addressed the raid after it made headlines. Us Weekly has reached out to Drewitt-Barlow for comment.
Before appearing on Below Deck as a guest, Anthony and his ex-husband, Barrie Drewett-Barlow, became the first gay couple to have a child via surrogacy in the U.K. They later became the first gay couple to be listed as parents on a birth certificate.
The former couple, who split in 2019, appeared on Below Deck together while coparenting their five kids. Barrie proposed to his partner Scott Drewett-Barlow — who used to date Barrie’s daughter Saffron — during the charter.
This isn’t the first time Below Deck guests have made headlines after their time on the show. During an August 2024 episode of Below Deck Mediterranean, Neysla Paltsev and several friends shocked viewers when they called Chef Johnathan Shillingford down to question his choice of caviar before making a dig about chief stew Aesha Scott‘s dinner service.
Captain Sandy Yawn ultimately intervened and subtly defended her staff to the guests during the charter. Paltsev, for her part, took to social media after receiving backlash to issue an apology.
“The dinner was definitely not my best moment and I should not have handled it the way I did,” she said via her Instagram Story at the time. “I was emotional and I couldn’t reel it back in. It wasn’t nice at all and for that I am really sorry about that.”
After watching the episode, Neysla walked some of those comments back, saying, “The confusion with the knives was silly. But the way I handled it was not OK. For that, I am truly sorry. Although getting knives confused is not a crime, neither is being rude. But I should not have been [that rude].”
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Shillingford broke his silence about the drama as well. “I think their apology was great for sure [where they were] taking responsibility for some of their snarky comments,” he exclusively told Us. “While that’s not OK, some people may have a bad day. The fact that they took responsibility for it was a great move on their part.”
The chef noted that the show didn’t give the guests a bad edit, adding, “In any show, there are things that are cut [or] things that maybe were dramatized because the camera does that anyways. Regardless of all of that, they did say things that were offensive.”
Johnathan also expressed his gratitude to Captain Sandy.
“We all kind of learned from it. As a crew, it was great that Captain Sandy had our backs,” he continued. “I think it’s great that in retrospect — or in seeing themselves — these guests maybe took responsibility for how rude or snarky they were.”
