The tension continues to escalate. Fraser Olender was shocked after a conversation with Captain Sandy took a very unexpected turn — and the Below Deck cameras were there to capture it all.
During the new episode of the hit Bravo series, which aired on Monday, February 7, Sandy, 57, overheard the interior team discussing her favoritism for the deck crew. The captain, however, didn’t hold back when she went on to call out Fraser’s leadership in front of his coworkers.
“There’s, like, three of you standing around. The deck crew is doing all this work for the interior. It’s not fair to them. Here’s the thing, there’s three of you and the deck crew are busting their ass, like, taking all the garbage out for you guys constantly,” the Florida native said to Fraser, Alissa Humber and Tyler Walker. “Fraser, now’s not the time to talk to me. Stop talking.”
As the chief stew attempted to defend his team, he was shut down by his boss. “Pure rage. I’ve never been in a fight and said, ‘It’s not the right time to speak to me,'” he told cameras as he stepped back from Sandy. “I’ve never felt so sickened by a captain in my entire life. I’m in actual shock.”
Viewers have seen Fraser and Sandy struggle to see eye to eye during season 10 of Below Deck. Ahead of Monday’s episode, the England native candidly addressed how he adapted to Captain Lee‘s replacement.
“I think they have, overall, very different management styles,” he exclusively told Us Weekly in January about working with his original boss, 73, before Lee’s temporary leave. “I knew Captain Lee and I knew how he worked. I knew how he liked things to be run. He also trusted me and he gave me the confidence to be creative and enjoy my take on [it].”
At the time, Fraser admitted it “took some time” for him to “get used to” how Lee’s replacement ran the St. David.
“But equally, she taught me a lot about myself and I think at the end of the season [you’ll] understand what I mean by that,” he continued. “She really opened my eyes to things I previously wouldn’t have dealt with so well — without her making sure I did.”
Earlier in the season, Lee surprised his coworkers when he announced his departure. “As you guys know I’ve been struggling with my mobility, and it’s been hard and I’ve let you guys down and for that, I apologize. So, I’ve made a decision to leave the boat,” he explained in a December 2022 episode before the Below Deck Mediterranean star took over his position.
Off screen, Lee raised eyebrows when he publicly questioned Sandy’s decisions since his exit. The OG Below Deck star, who has appeared on the show since 2013, claimed that the Be the Calm or Be the Storm author should have let him know before firing Camille Lamb in his absence.
“So, I found out after the fact that she fired one of my crew, not before. Ok?” the Michigan native tweeted last month in response to a new episode. “Then why contact me after and tell me at all? Plenty of time to call me after, but not before. She made the right call. But lacked in procedure and respect. Just the way I roll.”
Sandy, for her part, slammed the notion that she needed to report her plans to Lee. “He’s in the hospital. Who’s gonna call and say, ‘Can I fire Camille?’ Never in a million years would I do that,” she explained on SiriusXM’s Reality Checked on February 1. “But what I did was give him a courtesy call saying, ‘By the way, I did fire her. You almost had a mutiny on your boat because of her.'”
She continued: “Plus, who’s gonna call someone while they’re having surgery and then recovering from surgery? I don’t know what happened, but I tried to call him a few times and he hasn’t picked the phone up.”
The Bravo star threw some shade at Lee when she said he was “definitely not acting” his age.
“I have to say this. When they go low, we go high. I told Lee [through a Twitter post]. I was like ‘Hurt people hurt people’ right? So, I don’t know. I haven’t ever hurt him — but I think when you spew that kind of stuff it’s inward and I feel bad for the guy,” she added. “I called him and said, ‘Come back to your boat.’ Because I had a girlfriend that was going to have surgery. Like, I didn’t step on there to take over a show. I don’t want two shows. I like the Mediterranean. Are you kidding me? I like the Mediterranean.”
Below Deck airs on Bravo Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.
