‘Below Deck’ Charter Guests Express Concerns About Francesca Rubi
Below Deck charter guests begin to worry about chief stew Francesca Rubi, observing that she seemed exhausted.
“She literally looks like she’s about to pass out,” primary guest Charley Walters says during dinner service in a preview clip. He makes the observation after he asks Rubi to take a photo of the group and she leaves the room, telling him she’ll be “right back.”
Another guest says that Rubi looks exhausted. Indeed, Rubi seems frazzled as she returns to the galley kitchen to tell chef Rachel Hargrove the plates were dirty. She seems to be the only stew on service as she radios to Isabelle “Izzy” Wouters to help. Meanwhile stew Elizabeth Frankini presents drinks to the guests while deckhand Shane Coopersmith stands by the table, much to bosun Eddie Lucas’ dismay.
Francesca Rubi admits she was exhausted
The guests’ perception that Rubi was exhausted ended up being completely accurate. In fact, Rubi is so drained, she ends up in tears. “I wasn’t looking after myself,” she admitted to Decider. “I didn’t drink any water, I didn’t have any sleep that night — four hours or something. I’d been running on empty. My adrenaline was gone.”
“I’m not actually a crier,” she said. “When my girlfriends and colleagues have seen that trailer where I am crying, it’s like, ‘How did you even get to this stage?’”
Rubi admits she put a significant amount of pressure on herself too. “There were a whole lot of different factors,” she said. “And then add on the pressure of myself that I put on myself to do the best possible job I can. In hindsight, I think it helped me and it helped our working relationship. You’re only human. I act like a robot enough towards the guests. You are a server. This is what you do, you don’t have a personality, almost.”
Francesca Rubi also knew she needed to earn Captain Lee’s trust
Rubi understood that she was the first new chief stew for Captain Lee Rosbach after six seasons of working with Kate Chastain. Chastain and Rosbach are extremely close and he admitted he was going to miss working with her.
“I think it took a little while,” she shared with Decider. “It does take a little while in the industry. It takes a little while to earn someone’s trust and see how they work. It’s the same with myself and my stewardesses, so I understand from his point of view, it takes time to get to know me, my strengths, my weaknesses. We started out with a pretty rocky start.”
“I think respect was earned throughout the season when we had to tackle certain situations and be put in positions that we both hadn’t been in before,” she said about Rosbach. “Working together, that definitely helped us create a stronger working relationship.”
“And also, getting to know each other,” she said. “When I reach breaking point, each time I’m like, ‘Why did I do that?’ But you know, when you see that side of people, I think that that also makes you realize that that person is human. That person is working really, really hard, and putting a lot of pressure on themselves. It also took me balls to cry. I never cry.”
Below Deck is on every Monday at 9/8c on Bravo.
