Hannah Ferrier Wished She Worked With Chef Ryan on ‘Below Deck Down Under’ … Wait, What? [Exclusive]

After an especially spicy social media encounter with chef Ryan McKeown from Below Deck Down Under, Hannah Ferrier wished she had that exchange in person.

Ferrier, who was the chief stew on Below Deck Mediterranean for five seasons, went head to head with McKeown when he continuously dragged Below Deck Down Under chief stew Aesha Scott on both social media and on the show. Ferrier is close friends with Scott and told Showbiz Cheat Sheet she couldn’t ignore the mean remarks made about her friend. “I hate people talking smack on people that I care about, and especially when it’s so untrue, she said. “Aesha’s just a beautiful, lovely, happy person.”

Hannah wished she could have taken on Chef Ryan on ‘Below Deck Down Under’

Ferrier said Scott held her own on the show, but she wished she could have taken McKeown on herself. “I actually said to Nadine [Rajabi], the showrunner, I was like, ‘Nadine, why didn’t you give me him?’ I’m like, ‘You gave me the homophobic lady,'” Ferrier laughed thinking back to the mess when she worked with chef Mila Kolomeitseva on Below Deck Med Season 4.

“But like, if you gave me him … Come on. I would have so much fun with that” she laughed. “Like, so much fun. Because he’s an a**hole, but he’s also so bad at his job and that’s the best people to have fun with at work, especially when you’re making a reality show.”

Hannah Ferrier defends Aesha Scott – ‘That’s how I ended up having words with Ryan’

“There are some people who turn into different people when the camera is on,” she said about McKeown. “So I was hoping that was it. And it was just his ego. But no, he’s just an a**hole all the time. Even on social media and on Watch What Happens Live. Like the after is still just the same.”

Ferrier said watching McKeown come for her friend on the show was hard. “I was screaming at the TV screen. I’m like, ‘Aesha get him!'” she recalled. “We spoke a lot before she filmed. After she filmed she came and saw me and she was actually here. She’s obsessed with [daughter] Ava, which is very easy.”

“And that was actually how I ended up having words with Ryan,” she added. “Because he kind of insinuated in a podcast that she was like really fame-obsessed and her whole life was Bravo. Aesha is just so not that person. If you follow her on social media, she’s jumping off cliffs and driving around in a converted ambulance and sleeping in a tent and stuff. She’s the least kind of Bravo fame-hungry person there is.”

Kate Chastain thinks Hannah Ferrier would have gotten in Chef Ryans’ face

McKeown told Showbiz Cheat Sheet he turned on Scott when she asked him if he had “cheffy tantrums.” He also thought Kate Chastain from Below Deck would have been the chief stew to get him in line. “I like her attitude,” he said. “It’s a good attitude and a bad attitude, but she’s got balls too. Like, she’s a bada** chick and she’s not afraid to lay it down versus somebody like who I had to work with that just goes and whines. Have it out with me.”

Chastain told Showbiz Cheat Sheet she wasn’t sure she was the right chief stew to keep McKeown in check. “I hate confrontation,” she said. “I’m more of a passive-aggressive fighter, that’s my favorite. I love creative revenge. So I don’t think I’d get in his face. I hate to break it to him, but Hannah would.”

Indeed, Ferrier may have been just the fiery match for McKeown.