Exclusive: Caroline Bedol From ‘Below Deck’ Reveals What Really Happened When She Left the Show (and Why She Won’t Be at the Reunion)
The lines between reality and reality television can easily become blurred. Endless hours of footage must be edited to create a cohesive storyline. Which is often masterfully accomplished by the producers of Bravo’s Below Deck. However, former third stew Caroline Bedol alleges that significant footage was left on the cutting room floor the day she left the show. She says what was aired inaccurately portrayed what truly occurred the morning she departed My Seanna.
Viewers were privy to some of what went down. Chief stew Kate Chastain and second stew Josiah Carter became agitated when Bedol not only decided to quit at the last minute but then proceeded to lay in her bed on the boat while they worked.
But is that what truly happened? Bedol spoke exclusively to The Cheat Sheet to fill in edited gaps and what she says Chastain and Carter did to her, which led her to break down inside her bunk. Also, she addresses why Bravo refuses to allow her to attend the reunion.
This is actually how it started
Bedol gave her two-day notice in front of the entire cast, but it was the producers who wanted the whole crew present, not Bedol. “Also, I know there’s no such thing as giving your two-day notice, but I wanted to give Kate and Josiah enough time to help them flip the boat, which takes about two days,” she says.
But the next morning, Bedol is filmed laying in bed, telling Carter she wasn’t coming to work with really no explanation. The only part viewers saw was Bedol’s side interview saying she decided to quit on the spot because she had nightmares starring Chastain and Carter. “When I saw that, I thought ‘oh man that was never meant to be taken literally’ and I didn’t actually have nightmares starring Kate and Josiah,” she says.
Instead, what really happened was she got dressed early for work and stepped out to have a cigarette. But then returned to find Carter alone in her room, ripping her clothing off hangers and throwing them on the floor. “He told me we needed hangers, mind you there’s a surplus of hangers on board,” she recalls. She told him to leave her room. None of this was aired.
That was the point where Bedol said she had enough. “I thought. ‘f**k that.’ Not only have I been treated like sh*t this whole time, just out in the open, but now this.” As a result, Bedol told producers she’d had enough and wanted to leave immediately.
And why it looks like Bedol was just lounging in bed
Fate would have it, but Captain Lee Rosbach was on an off-ship excursion at the time. Producers wanted to film Bedol telling him she quit, plus, “I wouldn’t leave the boat without having that conversation with him, whether it was televised or not,” she says. So, producers told Bedol to wait in her cabin until Rosbach returned. Which, unfortunately, was going to be for a considerable amount of time.
Meanwhile, Carter is filmed re-entering Bedol’s room, asking her if she was coming to work. Bedol said no and Carter returned to Chastain to tell her Bedol wasn’t coming to work and was laying in bed. “First I find Josiah in my room throwing my clothes around when I’m not there, then he just walks in while I’m waiting for Lee to return,” Bedol says. “So I locked the door because I was like ‘f*ck this kid.’ I was following instructions from production. I was waiting for them to call so I could go address Lee.”
This is what viewers saw
While Bedol waited in her cabin for Rosbach to return, she says Carter and Chastain took the opportunity to verbally attack her. Chastain is filmed saying, “Who gave this nutjob a lock,” when she tries to enter Bedol’s room. Chastain warns Bedol she has one hour to vacate the boat. And she’s not there to sleep if she’s not working. Viewers next see Chastain and Carter giggle and set up a loudspeaker next to Bedol’s room. They select a thumping repetitive song and walk away laughing.
This is where editing might have left out a significant event. Because Bedol is seen in her cabin, applying chapstick and doesn’t seem to be horribly upset. But by the time bosun Ross Inia enters Bedol’s room, she’s hysterically crying. “I’m clearly not o.k. Is it because someone blared a speaker outside my door?” she asks. “Probably not. That’s not enough.”
Things go from bad to worse
What viewers didn’t see was a sustained verbal attack, originally reported by All About the Tea. Chastain made aggressive and slanderous comments outside Bedol’s door, including a dig by Chastain about Bedol’s mother. Bedol’s mother suffers from early onset dementia. Bedol also says Chastain and Carter banged on her door repeatedly while yelling at her too. The attack occurred over the course of about 30 minutes.
And while Chastain claims Bedol should have just opened the door and removed the speaker, Bedol said it wasn’t that simple. “I had two knuckleheads raging, screaming heinous sh*t. It was a psychologically unsafe place to be. Because if I were to open the door what’s next? Could it have gotten physical? I was scared and was not going to open that door. I was broken.”
Bedol points out too, “How could I go from being totally detached while waiting to clearly shaken,” she says. “My face is blown up from hysterically crying. I’m begging anyone to hear what I have to say.”
She wrote down what happened to present a clear case
As she cried hysterically, Bedol grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and wrote down everything Chastain and Carter were saying to her outside her door. “Because I was going to have to convey this entire thing to the Captain and I didn’t want my emotions clouding my memory,” she said. Bedol wrote verbatim everything that was said and done for a record. She adds that by the time Inia entered her room, she accurately described what had occurred through her tears, but those events were not included in the episode.
Once Rosbach returned to the boat and Bedol could be filmed saying her goodbye, she was clearly broken. In fact, the show’s trailer shows a teary-eyed Bedol telling Rosbach that “this was the most shocking thing that ever happened to me.” But that moment never actually aired.
Bedol read to Rosbach the notes she took, but that footage was not included in the episode. On camera, viewers see his face obviously drop. “He heard everything, the whole thing,” she said. “You know that he did not doubt me for a second. He had my back the whole time. I would confide in him. We connected and he was my leader.” He clearly looks shocked and disturbed. And while Rosbach later asks Chastain about the events, it never went any further. And the crew seems to move past it.
But she may never be able to defend herself at the reunion now
Since the episode aired the crew stuck together and the footage of what occurred has yet to air. Plus Bedol says she was dismayed no one would support her or affirm what happened that morning, especially Rosbach. This led to her trying to plead her case on Twitter, which ultimately backfired on her.
Although all cast members are invited to series reunions, Bedol says she’s officially been “disinvited.” She says she wants to confront the cast members who verbally attacked her, but also those who stood by and did nothing while it occurred. “At least 20 people were on board, watching me being verbally assaulted and nobody did sh*t,” she said.
“I would love to be welcome at the reunion,” Bedol says. “The reason the producers gave me for not being invited was that I wouldn’t be able to handle it or be happy with the result and it will further exacerbate my emotional unrest.” Additionally, producers claimed part of the reason was Bedol’s interaction with Rosbach on Twitter too.
She asserts the production crew has the footage of the attack and don’t want to be held accountable. The Cheat Sheet reached out to Bravo to get producers’ response but to also give Chastain and Carter an opportunity to address the charges. Bravo did not respond.
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