Working With Jason on ‘Below Deck Med’ Was Like Being a Man Down, Courtney Veale Reveals [Exclusive]
Does he stay or does he go? Below Deck Mediterranean previews point to deckhand Jason Gaskell’s departure. He tells bosun Storm Smith to “replace” him at one point. And if he does quit, deckhand Courtney Veale said working a man down for a charter or two may not have had a huge impact on the deck team.
Veale, who arrived on deck after bosun Raygan Tyler was fired, said she never gelled with Gaskell. She recently told Showbiz Cheat Sheet that Gaskell seemed so distant and checked out from the deck team that it sometimes felt as though they were a three-person, instead of four-person, department.
Jason didn’t seem to care at some point on ‘Below Deck Med’
Veale and Mzi “Zee” Dempers wanted to rally and support Smith, especially because they knew Smith was under pressure in the bosun role. “Obviously, Storm is stressed, this is his first time being bosun,” she recalled. “And I just think, somebody is not being like a team player, it’s always going to kind of go downhill.”
“And it was a shame when I started to realize it was like, ‘Is he actually going to try? Does he actually care?’ It started to feel like he just didn’t care,'” Veale said about Gaskell’s work on Below Deck Med. “And I think when it gets to that point, it’s just really hard because it kind of feels like you’re kind of fighting a losing battle. And it’s kind of like having one person down sometimes. Because when he really wanted to work hard and well he was amazing sometimes. And I knew he was a captain on like smaller boats and things. So the drive is in there somewhere.”
Courtney said she never got close to Jason
Veale worried that her cohesiveness with Smith and Dempers was off-putting to Gaskell. And that he felt more alienated from the crew as a result.
“It probably didn’t help maybe me coming in straight away clicking with Storm so well,” she recalled. “And I think that’s just because me and Storm are quite similar in like humor and personalities and the way we deal with things and stuff. So maybe that didn’t help.”
“I guess it fell into the fact that me, Storm, and Zee being quite close, just because we had that banter going and he just didn’t really ever want to kind of be involved in it,” Veale admitted. “That’s how I feel. So maybe that happening, he just started to go back into his shell. I hope that’s not the case. I hope it didn’t have anything to do with me being close to the boys. But honestly, I don’t know. Me and Jason aren’t really that close. We never really spoke about deep stuff.”
Jason clashed with Zee and Storm on ‘Below Deck Med’
Veale never got close to Gaskell but she could tell he was butting heads with Smith. He was already seen ignoring his radio when Smith would call. And Gaskell would grouse at Smith when given an order.
“I realized it kind of slowly,” Veale recalled of Gaskell’s overall attitude on deck. “Straight away, obviously, I met him and I knew that he was a really nice guy and that he had good intentions. But I just felt like we didn’t really click the same or whatever.”
“And that did worry me because it’s hard for me to clash with someone,” she said. “When I clashed with him a little bit, I was like, ‘Whoa, like, is it me?’ And then I see him clashing with Zee. And I’m seeing him clashing with Storm … and it’s just hard. We’re working in such close proximity and the trips are always so hectic and chaos.”
Veale’s comments about Gaskell from Below Deck Med are at the 4:36 minute mark of her full interview with Showbiz Cheat Sheet.
Stay tuned to find out if Jason Gaskell can turn it around on Below Deck Mediterranean, Monday nights at 8 pm ET on Bravo. Episodes drop one week early on Mondays on Peacock.
