Captain Lee Rosbach is speaking out about former crew member Luke Jones’ sexual misconduct on Bravo’s Below Deck Down Under.
Jones was swiftly fired by Captain Jason Chambers during a season 2 episode in August after he nakedly climbed into stewardess Margot Sisson’s bed “without consent” while she was asleep. Chief stewardess Aesha Scott quickly alerted Chambers, who then removed Jones from the boat for the night and terminated his employment the following morning.
In a look at the debut episode of PodcastOne’s Salty With Captain Lee, which Rosbach cohosts with Sam DeCavalcanti, the captain addresses the inappropriate behavior and why he wouldn’t have handled the situation “as well as Captain Jason did.”
“I mean, yes, I would have fired him, and yes, he would have been off the boat that evening,” he says of Jones. “His exit wouldn’t have been as comfortable as his exit was under Captain Jason.”
DeCavalcanti asks if Rosbach was suggesting that he would have “kick[ed] his a — off the boat” and threw all of the crew member’s belongings out with him.
“I would drag his a — off the boat,” the captain confirms, not holding back. “He would have bounced going up every one of the stairs in the crew mess, and then bounced down every step of the gangway until he landed next to the bags of trash, where I would have had him picked up with the rest of the trash.”
Along with Jones, Chambers also fired second stew Laura Bileskalne in the same episode for her own unacceptable behavior. She was terminated for reacting inappropriately to Jones’ actions as well as her own misconduct toward deckhand Adam Kodra the previous night.
“ Their behavior was despicable. Both of them,” Rosbach told in August. “And I’m sure they’ll be paying the price for it for a long time to come. As they should.”
He also added that he was “impressed” by the way Chambers and Scott handled the unsettling incident.
“I don’t know if I would have had the wherewithal to remain as calm as Captain Jason did, but he certainly stepped up to the plate and did it right,” he continued, noting that when someone is the captain, they’re “responsible for everything and anything that does happen. Jason handled it superbly.”
In a confessional in the season 2 episode, Scott — who has been open about her own experience with sexual assault — said Jones’ behavior made her “skin crawl.”
“We don’t actually know what would have happened, but being in her bed naked and she’s got no idea, it actually makes my skin crawl,” she shared. “You don’t have the right to put someone unconscious into that position … the thought of anyone violating or being in her space, it just makes me feel sick.”
Salty with Captain Lee launches on Wednesday and can be streamed wherever podcasts are heard. Below Deck Down Under airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo and can be streamed the next day on Peacock.
