The highly anticipated Season 8 of Below Deck finally premiered last night, and there’s a lot to delve into.
Fans of the show will have to get used to a brand new cast aboard My Seanna, although there is one familiar face back in the mix.
One person who’s not in the mix, however, is former chief stew Kate Chastain, who quit the show after six seasons.
However, fans are not the only ones missing Kate’s absence, Captain Lee Rosbach–who has worked with the opinionated chief stew for several years– has quite a bit to say about her departure from the popular Bravo show as well.
Captain Lee is sad that Kate Chastain left the show
Below Deck viewers will have to get used to a brand new chief stew now that the new crew is ready to set sail.
Newbie, Francesca Rubi certainly has some large shoes to fill as fans have come to enjoy the banter between Kate and Captain Lee over the years.
During a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Captain Lee dished about Kate’s departure and as you can imagine, he wasn’t very happy about it.
“I was sad to see Kate go,” admits the captain. ” I didn’t know how the chemistry would work between my new chief stew and myself or between my new chief stew and everyone else.”
He explained, “When you work with somebody as long as I’ve worked with Kate, you get a sense for how she’s gonna interact with certain people and certain personalities, and so you get a feel for how things are gonna transpire or not during the course of the season.”
During his chat with the ET correspondent, Captain Lee shares how he felt when he first learned the news that Chastain was stepping away from Below Deck.
Chastain’s departure caught the captain by surprise
The 70-year-old admits that he did not see it coming.
“It totally caught me off guard,” says the yacht captain, “I never saw it coming; I was just totally unprepared.”
The Bravo alum says he had a long conversation with the former chief stew about it, “Then I started to think of the ramifications of it,” admits Lee adding, “They were huge.”
Many viewers were shocked by Kate’s decision to leave Below Deck, and of course, fans wondered how the show would fare without her.
And so did Captain Lee, who admitted that it was extra pressure.
“It was like, ‘okay, she’s gone so where does all this weight fall now'” says the My Seanna captain, “Am I ready for this?”
Well, ready or not the season is here and we’ll just have to wait and see how fans will react without the popular chief stew.
Below Deck airs Mondays at 9/8c on Bravo.