‘Below Deck’: Shane Coopersmith Insists He Got a Bad Edit and Has a Message for Kate Chastain and Andy Cohen
Departing deckhand Shane Coopersmith from Below Deck recently revealed that despite having acting and modeling experience, he thinks producers did him dirty.
He knew ahead of time that the job was going to be hard work and real, but admits he never worked a day on a superyacht. “[Producers] were like, Hey, like this is a real job,” he said on the Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast.
“Like I remember sitting in the executive producer’s office up in Hollywood and I said he was at his desk,” he said. “I was on the other side. He’s like, hey, this is a real fricking job. Like you’re going to be working like 14 hours a day nonstop. It’s a very unsustainable industry. Like they’re spewing gas and like all this stuff.”
But Coopersmith assured the producer he was a hard worker and knew his way around boats. He also told producers he planned to bring his paper straws on board and his message of sustainability to the show. Production appeared to be on board with his plan … so he thought.
The show didn’t portray who he really is, Shane Coopersmith says
Coopersmith admits that he quickly realized he was being shown in a certain light and was disappointed. “I did not understand the archetype that I was going to be while I was on the boat,” Coopersmith said. “And then basically by the second episode of the season, I saw the archetype that they’re putting me in.”
“I was a little disappointed,” he added. “You know, they like kind of, they did a little bit of the sustainability, at the first episode. Then they kind of ditched that. Then they just decided to put me as the lazy kid that doesn’t work hard, which is so incredibly false.”
Despite knowing the game, he felt a little duped. “I didn’t really reach out to any producers,” he said. “They have their own agenda and I wanted to blame them, but you know, I signed up for their game at the end of the day and that’s how they like to run it.”
Adding, “I don’t think it’s very admirable to tell you the truth, but that’s what they want to do. That’s they have their own agenda to make money, I guess and get fans. And they want to do that by making other people look bad, but I signed up for their game and I played it.”
Shane Coopersmith did ‘WWHL’ because he was annoyed the show didn’t feature sustainability
Coopersmith says he heavily plugged his brand and the environment on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen because the show abandoned the topic. “I finally got so fed up with it that like I went on the Andy Cohen show and I was like, I don’t care what you guys are going to talk about from Below Deck drama,” he said.
He admits he went in hard with the “sustainability” message during his second appearance. Coopersmith also said he purposely danced around questions which left host Andy Cohen feeling frustrated and annoyed. But he said no one said anything to him and Cohen even got on board yelling “sustainability” at the end of the show.
Coopersmith also addressed Cohen and former chief stew Kate Chastain’s recent shade about his message while working on a superyacht. “I mean the reason why I went on Below Deck is because I wanted to make the yachting world less unsustainable and I did,” he asserted.
