Below Deck Down Under‘s Ellie Dubaich spoke out about the surprising offscreen divide between her and Daisy Kelliher and Jenna Woudberg.
“I was surprised because I didn’t mean to offend anybody. I was simply sharing what happened when I got the call after [stew] Joe [Caron] left,” Ellie exclusively told Us Weekly.
The galley hand provided more detail about what took place behind the scenes, adding, “One thing that was different is that at the very beginning, Jenna was not made second stew. She was told she knew she had to prove herself that first charter — and then she got made second stew. That’s one thing that’s been shown a little bit differently, because it ended up being just irrelevant. It was trimmed and simplified.”
Ellie joined season 4 of Below Deck Down Under after some reconfiguration led to a stew position no longer being available but a spot in the kitchen opening up. After coming aboard the boat, Ellie agreed to make the move to the galley instead of interior, which caused backlash when Daisy and Jenna defended the assumption that someone’s job would have been at risk if Ellie hadn’t agreed to the swap.
Viewers have had a front row seat to some of the biggest reality TV feuds since the Below Deck franchise debuted. The show’s spinoff series Below Deck Mediterranean shocked viewers when Hannah Ferrier and Captain Sandy Yawn‘s inability to see eye to eye turned into the most memorable firing to date. Since the captain joined […]
“I was on my way to being a second stew because Captain Jason [Chambers] wanted to have the most experienced leadership team. I started working at sea when Jenna was in third grade in 2016. That’s not a dig. That’s a simple fact,” Ellie told Us. “It did make sense that Captain Jason would want me to be in a leadership position. [When he] asked me to change, I was happy to change. That’s all I was saying.”
She continued: “I was happy that things worked out the way they did. But the way Jenna and Daisy responded was mean-spirited. It was unnecessary, and I was taken aback. So I think it’s going to be a little bit indicative of how the two of them approached me this season.”
Ellie called Daisy’s reaction a “one-sided” issue.
“It started this season, and we’ll see that evolve,” she teased. “But I don’t really have an issue with Daisy. She doesn’t like me. She doesn’t seem to like me for whatever reason. We’ll see how that happens. But I don’t really have an issue with her.”
The Below Deck franchise has had its fair share of chaos over the years, but there were some moments that stood out more. During season 7 of the Bravo show, chief stew Kate Chastain and bosun Ashton Pienaar had a scary confrontation when the latter was drunk after a night out. Ashton ended up punching […]
Looking ahead, Ellie made it clear there’s no bad blood on her end.
“I had no problems to begin with,” she continued. “Let’s move on — as far as I’m concerned.”
Ellie originally made an appearance on Below Deck Mediterranean before returning this season alongside Captain Jason. After having a rocky start in the franchise, Ellie called coming back again “overwhelming” since the season had already started.
“I don’t know any one of these people and they’ve already established relationships. I’m starting a new job and I didn’t even know I was going to be doing this job,” she noted to Us. “I literally found out at the airport [that I] was gonna be doing this job. So it was just so many new things happening which were out of my control. I just didn’t even have the time to overthink anything. I was just like, ‘I have to put one foot in front of the other. That’s all I can do.’ I was just doing my best.”
Below Deck Down Under airs on Bravo Mondays at 8 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Peacock.
