‘Below Deck’: Francesca Rubi Breaks Down in Tears Revealing the Crew Thinks She’s ‘B*tchy’ and ‘Mean’
Chief stew Francesca Rubi from Below Deck is more than aware that some crew members aren’t her biggest fans.
She’s seen in tears in an upcoming episode, crying about how the crew becomes your family, but this crew views her as being abrasive. The revelation comes when My Seanna is about to dock and she sees another chief stew she knows on another yacht. She excitedly waves at the other crew member from afar, but then has to excuse herself.
“A big part of yachting is the crew end up being your family,” she said in a confessional. Rubi becomes emotional and she cries alone in her bunk. “This crew doesn’t see me like a person. They see me as this b*tchy, mean chief stew.” Rubi tears up in her confessional as cameras capture her crying while trying to compose herself for docking.
Francesca Rubi and Elizabeth Frankini likely won’t stay in touch
The season was filmed nearly a year ago and Rubi seems to have gotten over the disappointment that she didn’t bond with some of the crew. She hosted a “Ask Me Anything” on Instagram and was asked how she dealt with Elizabeth Frankini ignoring her direction. Frankini thought Rubi was passive-aggressive, but Rubi didn’t see it that way.
“There’s also no time when on charter to train,” she said. “So you kind of have to find a balance between training on the job and also instructing in a nice way.”
“But yes, it was definitely frustrating for me when Elizabeth wasn’t listening to my directions,” she continued. “I feel that I was communicating in a very nice and clear manner. Especially about the cutlery drawer.”
She was also asked if she would work with Frankini and Ashling Lorger in the future. Rubi only talked about Lorger. “I would pick lovely Ash because she just thinks on her feet,” she said. “And I always know it’s going to be sorted and I don’t need to micromanage. I don’t need to check up on her like you saw with the detox shots in the recent episode.”
‘Below Deck’ chief stews often deal with being viewed as ‘b*tchy’ and ‘mean’
Every chief stew in the franchise has dealt with crew members viewing them as being cruel or too stern. Chief stew Jenna MacGillivray from Below Deck Sailing Yacht was often told she was too hard on her stews. Fans also bashed MacGillivray for her no-nonsense manner and tone-deaf jokes.
Chief stew Kate Chastain from Below Deck also had several stews say she was an unpleasant boss. Stew Emily Warburton-Adams’ recent comments about Chastain came as a surprise. She and Chastain seemed to work well together, but she said that wasn’t necessarily the case.
“It mainly came after the season,” she recalled about post-season tension. “On the show, there were a few things obviously at the end when she started flagging things I’d done wrong. Which caused a little bit of a rift.”
Chief stew Hannah Ferrier from Below Deck Mediterranean also had issues with stews, especially Christine “Bugsy” Drake. Drake told Ferrier she thought she’d been a “lousy” chief stew during season 2. Drake returned for season 5, but she and Ferrier seemed to have grown and worked through their differences.
Below Deck is on Monday at 9/8c on Bravo.
