‘Below Deck Med’: Kasey Cohen Defends João Franco – ‘That’s Something They Didn’t Air’
Below Deck Mediterranean stew Kasey Cohen had some genuine moments with (then) deckhand João Franco that never aired on season 3.
Franco earned a bad reputation on his first season of Below Deck Med. He had a huge conflict with chief stew Hannah Ferrier and flirted with Cohen while also trying to date second stew, Brooke Laughton. Cohen agreed that what was shown of Franco did portray him as a villain. But there was plenty of footage showing Franco’s softer, kinder side that never made the show.
João Franco helped Kasey Cohen when she was seasick on ‘Below Deck Med’ Season 3
Especially toward the beginning of Below Deck Med Season 3, Cohen was horribly seasick. She said Franco cared and helped her.
“I really loved how when I was going through my seasickness, he was the one who was checking up on me,” Cohen said on the Brandi Glanville Unfiltered podcast. “He was the one who was bringing me electrolytes or waking me up in the middle of the night to bring me something to eat. Because he’s like, ‘You got to eat. You got to do something because I can’t keep anything down.'”
“His and Colin’s [Macy-O’Toole] room was next to mine and Jamie’s [Jason]. So if he heard me throwing up or something like that, he would come in, he would walk me up to either the kitchen or just like outside, where he’d be like, ‘I want you to look at the horizon. It’s going to help you center and get equilibrium,'” Cohen recalled. “And he would stay with me. And so that’s something that they didn’t air, which shows that he truly cared about me. And this was in the beginning before he even knew me and before he thought he had a crush on me.”
He also cheered on her success as a stew on the show
Franco also supported Cohen after she was busted for enhancing her CV. Captain Sandy Yawn gave Cohen a chance to prove herself and Franco cheered her success. “When the whole thing with the CV happened, he was like just prove yourself,” Cohen recalled.
“He was like, ‘I know you’re smart. I know you can do it.’ He was the only one who really had my back at that moment because Hannah was going around telling everybody, ‘She needs to get off the boat,'” Cohen said. Telling people, “She lied and all this kind of stuff. And so he was the one who had my back. So I see everyone’s point. But at the same time, I saw a different side to him. And I think he just needed to adjust how he spoke to people who would be combative with him,” Cohen added.
Kasey said João Franco’s biggest issue was with Hannah Ferrier
Cohen recalled that the majority of Franco’s issues on Below Deck Med Season 3 stemmed from his conflict with Ferrier. “We got to see a different side of João than what was aired,” she said. “Because, again, his main issue was with Hannah.”
“It’s like these big personalities and they just kind of conflict. Someone has to be the one who catches the attention in the room and they’re both those types of people,” Cohen said. “So I think it was like a very big battle against the two of them. But I didn’t like that part of how he spoke to Hannah and stuff like that.”
