Below Deck’s Captain Lee Says Jill Zarin’s Attitude ‘Stunk’ on the Show: ‘The Camera Doesn’t Lie’
Below Deck‘s Captain Lee Rosbach is offering his perspective on the recent guest drama — and he isn’t Team Jill Zarin.
“Below Deck had a tough week,” Lee, 74, told his “Salty With Captain Lee” podcast cohost Sam DeCavalcanti on an episode earlier this month. “They had Jill Zarin on.”
Lee started by discussing Jill’s ice reference, which was joked about on the show. Jill, 60, notably requested only Diet Coke and not Diet Pepsi before asking stew Barbie Pascual to add one specific type of ice to her drinks.
“I wonder if she brought some deodorant for her attitude because it sure as hell stunk,” Lee quipped.
Lee, who was replaced by Captain Kerry Titheradge after 10 seasons of Below Deck, praised the St. David captain for his response. Kerry told his crew on screen that they need to be catering to their primary — who wasn’t Jill — first.
“What is happening is that Jill is rattling our cage too much and we are focusing on Jill. We should be focusing on the primary,” Kerry pointed out. “We can’t drift away from what the primary wants, otherwise we make more and more mistakes.”
Lee agreed with Kerry, noting on his podcast, “You take care of the primary. Everybody else is on their own.”
Lee concluded: “Some of the Below Deck stars have since come to Zarin’s defense — including [Barbie] — who after watching the episode back, said, ‘I don’t think Jill was as bad as it looked.’ The only thing I know is the camera doesn’t lie.”
After Jill’s episodes caused backlash from some viewers, the former Real Housewives of New York City star defended herself.
“I’m good with everything I did,” she exclusively told Us Weekly. “[However], I don’t agree with how they reacted to why I said what I said on the show. So I kind of came back and gave my point of view because I don’t get an interview on the show. I don’t get a confessional.”
“I felt it necessary to set the record straight and there’s more things to set the record straight on, but there’s only so many hours in a day,” she joked. “I didn’t have any downsides to filming. I actually enjoyed it, I had a great time. I think that I learned things when I was on the boat.”
Jill said her frustration came from what didn’t end up airing, concluding, “There’s a couple of scenes that you miss that they cut out of the show. There’s only 50 minutes in a show and they’re going to focus on the drama.”
Below Deck season 11 airs on Bravo Mondays at 9 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Peacock.
