‘Below Deck Sailing Yacht’: Captain Glenn Reveals He and Girlfriend Dani Jimenez Were Together ‘Before the Show’ and Why He Went Public [Exclusive]
Captain Glenn Shephard recently opened up about girlfriend Dani Jimenez, revealing that they had been together before the series set sail.
After three seasons on the show, the usually private Below Deck Sailing Yacht captain quietly began posting photos on Instagram that included a mystery woman. Fans had questions and Shephard dodged questions about his private life for a while but finally decided to introduce Jimenez to the Below Deck world.
“It’s not so much about [hiding the romance from] the fans, more about stuff in our personal life that we didn’t really want it to be public,” Shephard told Showbiz Cheat Sheet. “Wasn’t that we were trying to hide from the fans, but just from being in a public situation.”
Captain Glenn and his girlfriend were together before ‘Below Deck Sailing Yacht’
Shephard didn’t fully go into details, but said something changed in their lives that made the couple comfortable with going public.
“It’s hard for me to talk about. I can’t really go into details, but things in our lives changed where it made sense that we could,” he said. “And so we did. We’ve been together for four and a half years, before the show. And at the beginning it was more like a long distance relationship because I was working more. Now I’m working less.”
“So right now, we’re traveling around southern Spain together,” she shared. “We’re actually in Madrid and she just popped to up to Palma. Coming back tomorrow, we’re going to go up north to Andorra, do some snowboarding. But no, everything’s going well with us. But yeah, it didn’t make sense for us to put it all out there at the beginning. But now it’s OK.”
Captain Glenn reveals he’s close to retiring too
Shephard also revealed that Jimenez has worked in yachting. “She has the certificates I think I mentioned this on social. She doesn’t speak that much English. Our relationship is like a mixture of Spanish and English. And so I don’t think she would be able to work full time on a boat. I’d love her too, but I’m kind of coming out of the industry,” he said.
“I’m near retirement and semi-retired already,” Shephard said. “And so for us, it’s more about traveling than her working on boats. But she has worked on the boat before. She’s done some stuff on the boat more in between the seasons.”
“Because of the language difficulty when you’re in the middle of the season, you’ve seen what it’s like, and if the communication is not 110%, it’s going to lead to problems. And I wouldn’t want to put her in that situation. I think she just gets it but I think that would be a bit too hard. So in between seasons, yeah, but in season, I think it’ll be too hard for her. It wouldn’t be fair,” he added.
‘Below Deck Sailing Yacht’ Season 4 location is a star
The couple looks forward to a life of travel and adventure. Shephard also said this season’s location of Sardinia, Italy is a favorite.
“It’s such a lovely area,” he said. “It’s called Costa Smeralda or the Emerald Coast. It’s actually a very posh part of Italy. It’s kind of jetset capital. And so you’re going to see some amazing locations. I can’t go into too much detail, but a lot of turquoise water, a lot of beautiful scenery, little villages. And there’s a national park that we go into that’s just pristine, it’s spectacular.”
“That area is very popular for superyachts in general and yachting in general,” Shephard added. “And they also hold a lot of regattas in that area so the conditions are quite good for sailing. So we do a lot of sailing as we always try to. But yeah, I think maybe the destination is always the star of the show, but I think especially this season it’s really going to be one of the stars of the show for sure.”
Below Deck Sailing Yacht is on Monday at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo.
