Below Deck Mediterranean‘s Aesha Scott is defending Gael Cameron from criticism about her almost hookup with Nathan Gallagher after only knowing each other for several days.
“It is what it is. That’s what they felt like doing at the time. The one thing that I will say in Gael’s defense because I know that she probably will get a lot of heat online of like, ‘Well, it didn’t take you very long,” Aesha exclusively told Us Weekly while weighing on on the season 9 drama. “As someone who was her roommate and witnessed her relationship with her current boyfriend — when she came on [the boat], that relationship was not in a great stable situation.”
Aesha hinted that viewers didn’t see the whole story when it came to Gael’s offscreen relationship.
“Some of the messages that he would send her and the way that he would speak to her wasn’t very nice,” the chief stew noted. “And I think that whole thing was very insecure to start with and they’d only been together a few months.”
While reflecting on the situation, Aesha expressed her frustration at Gael’s then-boyfriend, adding, “I felt frustrated at her ex because I think if you really care about someone and they get presented an opportunity as amazing as coming on Below Deck, you need to be their biggest cheerleader.”
Aesha didn’t think Gael’s partner was supporting her the way he should have been.
“You don’t want to cause them any worry. You don’t want to be the reason that their mind is somewhere else or they’re stressed about you back home. Even if you are mad, stay Switzerland the whole time because you want them to focus and be present 100 percent and you should be supporting them in that,” she continued. “He just never, ever, ever supported her. And she was constantly having to worry about how he’s feeling and what he is doing. I just found it so selfish.”
Earlier this season, Gael and Nathan surprised viewers when they tried to find a place on the boat without cameras to meet. The pair didn’t initially confirm what their plans were but it was obvious they considered hooking up, despite Gael being in a relationship. The offscreen date — which didn’t happen because production caught on — also came days after the deckhands met each other.
“What is right and what is wrong? Am I doing the right thing or the wrong thing?” Gael said in a confessional from the June episode. “Maybe I like him a little tiny bit. Maybe I just want to hang out with him a little bit. I’m not harming anyone.”
Gael and Nathan’s plans to interact without getting caught felt very reminiscent of Eddie Lucas and Raquel “Rocky” Dakota‘s secret meetings during season 5 of Below Deck. The 2015 episodes were why production subsequently added cameras to the laundry room.
Meanwhile, Aesha didn’t have the same concerns about her personal life because of her longterm relationship with Scott “Scotty” Dobson. Us broke the news in May that Aesha and Scott were engaged after several years of dating.
“It’s so special because as a lot of people know, Scott and I do spend so much time apart. He’s often in Breckenridge and I’m just flying around here, there and everywhere. I think getting engaged just further solidified us as a unit even when we are not together all the time,” she told Us. “I just got this feeling of peace and contentment.”
The couple did have conversations about their future together, but Scott still surprised Aesha with the proposal.
“We talked about marriage very early on. But the biggest thing is I wanted it to be a surprise. I don’t want to expect it at all. I did not suspect a thing,” she shared. “We want to do a long engagement. We want to [get married] in the New Zealand summer and not this summer but next summer. We’ve got a lot of family and friends here so we want to give everyone a chance to save up enough money to turn it into a proper holiday. You can’t go to New Zealand for four days.”
Aesha also shared the secret to making long distance relationships work, adding, “We’re just very fortunate in the sense that we are both very independent and it helps as well that we have complete trust. We’re so stable that we know with every ounce of our being that once we are finished with the thing that we’re doing, we’ll be going back to that person and it will just carry on normal.”
She concluded: “I actually love having the balance of going and doing my own thing and being completely alone and then coming back and having couple time. If I was with someone all the time, I’d go a bit crazy because I just love going off and he’s the same.”
Below Deck Mediterranean season 9 airs on Bravo Mondays at 9 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Peacock.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
