Sometimes Below Deck coworkers get on like a house on fire. Other times … not so much.
For Us Weekly’s latest cover story, captains, stews and crew members from multiple seasons and franchises of the hit Bravo reality series got candid about the luxury yachting industry — and about which of their former castmates they’d happily see never again.
Chief stew Kate Chastain, who starred on the original Below Deck series from 2014 to 2020 and was known for her “bitchy resting face,” joked that there wasn’t enough time for her to name everybody she’d refuse to work with again. She did, however, give Us a partial list.
“I would never work with [chef] Leon [Walker] or [stew] Rocky [Dakota, below] again, simply because they don’t want to work with me, and they made that clear while we were working together,” she said.
Who else didn’t make the cut? “I wouldn’t want to work with [bosun] Ashton [Pienaar] again. I wouldn’t want to work with chef Kevin [Dobson] again, or Caroline [Bedol]. Lauren [Burchell], the female deckhand from season 4,” Kate continued, adding, “I will say I think Rocky is a star. She’s extremely talented and entertaining, and I understand her talents were wasted working on a yacht. I understand why she wasn’t into it, but I’m not the one who made her get that job. I’m still singing songs she was making up in the laundry room. She was iconic.”
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Below Deck Sailing Yacht chief stew Daisy Kelliher — who will be climbing aboard Below Deck Down Under with Captain Jason Chambers and returning original franchise chef Ben Robinson in 2026 — has a short but decisive list: Her season 5 stewardesses Danni Warren and Diana Cruz (below), who complained about their boss all season, and engineer and ex-boyfriend Colin MacRae. “I’m not sure we need to rehash that,” she told Us.
For Below Deck Mediterranean chief stew Hannah Ferrier, bosun Malia White would be a definite no-go, something that won’t surprise anyone who watched the two bump heads on board The Wellington. Another no-brainer: stewardess Bugsy Drake, below.
“We never really got along — we’re very different people,” Hannah told Us. “There were a few things that annoyed me in season 2, like the iPad.”
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Stew Bugsy saw messages between Hannah and charter guest Jason Ziegler on the communal iPad and told the captain and crew. “Dude, if we’re supposed to be working together and you see messages on an iPad, come to me on camera and be like, ‘Oh, I see you’re texting the charter guest,’” Hannah said. “You don’t need to bring [deckhands] Bobby [Giancola] and Max [Hagley] and make it a big production.”
Still, Hannah added, “At the same time, I wouldn’t say I would never work with her.”
Not everyone on the show has a banned list, however. Below Deck chief stew Fraser Olender, who has been a Bravo mainstay since 2021, diplomatically told Us, “There’s not much that scares me anymore — I’d have anyone back.”
But, he added, he does at least have some reservations, particularly after watching back season 12, which ended this month. “There’s really no good deed that goes unpunished on the show or in the industry,” he said when asked how it felt to watch footage of chef Anthony Iracane, who he fought to have back on board this year, complaining about him to other crew and in confessionals.
“I didn’t know that he had a single issue with me coming into this season,” Fraser explained. “We were a very good, compatible team. I just didn’t like how much he had to say in interviews as opposed to how much he had to say in real life. And again, this was happening until I watched back a year and a half later, so it’s very eye-opening, and … it’s left a taste in my mouth that I may not be too excited to be tasting anytime soon.”
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For Captain Jason, whose turn on Below Deck Down Under began in 2022, there’s no one he wouldn’t give another shot. “In season 2, I terminated [deckhand] Adam [Kodra],” Chambers told Us, “and that hurts. I didn’t want to let go of anyone. But Adam, I did have a soft spot for [and] he had good qualifications.”
The captain added, “We’re in contact now, but that’s one person I just [think] if I had another six months, I would have definitely just let that grow.”
Even the famously difficult chef Ryan McKeown (below) is someone Jason has no hard feelings toward. “I let him go in season 1, but I know he’s really changed,” he explained. “He’s got a big restaurant chain now in Florida, and he’s doing really well. He’s just got engaged, I think, as well. So you never know.”
For more revelations from the Below Deck cast, watch the exclusive video above and pick up the latest issue of Us Weekly — on newsstands now.
