‘NEXT-LEVEL SCARY’
‘Below Deck’ Accused of Covering Up Gary King’s Sexual Misconduct
A production member tells Rolling Stone that the Below Deck Sailing Yacht star allegedly crossed the line with her, and it wasn’t the only time
Fred Jagueneau/Bravo
Bravo’s Below Deck was recently lauded for its handling of sexual misconduct when a producer on Below Deck Down Under broke the “fourth wall” and intervened when one cast member, Luke Jones, tried to get into bed naked with another cast member, Margot Sisson, without her consent while she was inebriated and passed out. Not only was Luke fired from the show, but their fellow cast member and stewardess, Laura Bileskalne, was also let go because of victim-blaming comments she made to Margot about the incident and her own line-crossing pursuit of deckhand Adam Kodra.
While viewers and fans of the show applauded the pivotal on-screen moment, production crew members who have worked on the popular, Emmy-nominated franchise say they’ve experienced and witnessed sexual harassment and misconduct from other cast members behind the scenes without seeing any real accountability.
Samantha Suarez, who first joined Below Deck in the makeup department on Season 10 of the show, tells Rolling Stone that cast member Gary King tried to force himself on her during production of Below Deck Sailing Yacht Season Four, which filmed in Sardinia, Italy, in the summer of 2022.
The South Africa-born King entered the Below Deck universe on the second season of Below Deck Sailing Yacht and has remained Captain Glenn Shephard’s first mate for the last few seasons aboard Parsifal III. On Below Deck Sailing Yacht, King has a reputation for acting flirtatious toward the other women on the boat and for hooking up with a number of cast members. In the most recent season, King appears in a love triangle with Daisy Kelliher and Colin MacRae. After the Below Deck Sailing Yacht Season Four reunion aired on Bravo in July, King posted a photo of himself, Kelliher, and McCrae on Instagram. He wrote in his caption, “Last season of #belowdecksailing was not my best, having watched some episodes I know that I have a lot of work and growing to do and will do everything to be a better person.”
Suarez says she met King for the first time when the cast and crew arrived in Sardinia in preparation to film the fourth season. Crew members stayed in the same hotel, the DoubleTree by Hilton Olbia-Sardinia, for the whole duration of filming. Cast members joined them and stayed in the same hotel prior to filming charters on the yacht and on the few “dark days” during the season when no one in production or the cast worked.
In addition to doing hair and makeup for the cast, Suarez says she assisted the talent manager with day-to-day tasks including making sure cast members were sequestered in their hotel rooms and didn’t bump into one another. It was also Suarez’s job to bring food and water to cast members’ rooms since they weren’t allowed to leave their own hotel rooms because of Covid protocols, and to preserve as much authenticity around the cast’s interactions as possible. Suarez, a 27-year-old who’s based in Atlanta, says she told producers when everyone first arrived in Sardinia that some of the cast members, including King, were being difficult and refused to stay isolated in their hotel rooms like they were instructed to.
One “dark day” in July when the cast members were staying at the hotel, Suarez accompanied an inebriated King back to his hotel room after he filmed his interviews for the show, where she says producers provided him with a substantial amount of alcohol.
“There is no limit to alcohol consumption whatsoever, which I think poses a really big problem,” she says.
According to Suarez, King was behaving erratically when she brought him to his hotel room; she says he was yelling outside of his balcony to other cast members and trying to find out their room numbers so they could sneak out of their rooms and hang out. She says she tried to contain him and keep him inside his room, then eventually told King she had to leave to help other cast members.
Suarez says when King asked her not to leave she joked with him that she would sit outside of his door to make sure he wouldn’t leave his hotel room. According to Suarez, King then suggested she get in bed with him and repeatedly asked her not to leave his room even though she says he was aware that she was in a relationship with someone else. After a few minutes, she insisted she had to leave and help other cast members, telling King she would return later to drop off snacks and water. She says when she went back to King’s room with a case of water bottles and a bag of snacks, she knocked on the door and King answered the door in his underwear. She says she asked King to take the case of water out of her hands and he continued to ask her not to leave his hotel room.
“I was like, ‘I have to go — I need to go bring other people water and food,’ and he’s like, ‘No, no, please,’” Suarez says. “So I stepped into the room to set the case of waters down and again, he’s repeating, ‘Don’t leave,’ and I was like, ‘I have to go, I’m not staying.’”
When she turned toward the door, Suarez says King came up behind her, grabbed her, pressed her against his body, and refused to let go of her even though she says she tried to kick and elbow him to get him off her. She says she managed to get out of his grasp and went to open the door to leave. Then she says King slammed the door shut from behind her.
“At that point, I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was freaking out,” Suarez says. “It just happened so fast.”
In that same moment, Suarez says she received a phone call from the talent manager and answered it. She says that’s when King let go of the door and she stepped into the hallway to take the call.
“I’m freaking out, and he goes, ‘What’s wrong? What’s going on?’ And I’m like, ‘Just leave me alone.’ He tried to come up behind me and put his arm around me. He’s in the hallway in his underwear and it’s all weird and fucked up, and so I’m just like, ‘Just go back in your room and don’t come out.’”
“I’m freaking out, and he goes, ‘What’s wrong? What’s going on?’ And I’m like, ‘Just leave me alone.’“
Suarez says she immediately told producers what happened following the incident when she saw them in the production office. The next day, she says a co-executive producer reached out to her and they had a conversation about what happened. After Suarez spoke with the co-executive producer she says she had another meeting with him, executive producers Courtland Cox and Vivian Choi, as well as the show’s talent manager. She says she told the producers she didn’t feel comfortable being around King, she didn’t want to do his hair or makeup, and she didn’t want to be alone with him or in the same room as him. She says Cox apologized to her and said the producers would have a conversation with King, assuring Suarez that King would be fired from the show if any other incidents occurred. She says the next day producers removed King from the hotel where the rest of the cast and crew members were staying and for the rest of the “dark days” during filming, he was instructed to sleep on the boat.
“It pretty much sucked from there on out,” Suarez says. “I was just in a super depressive state.”
King declined to comment for this story. A spokesperson for Bravo told Rolling Stone in a statement, “Bravo is committed to maintaining a safe and respectful workplace for cast and crew on our reality shows. We require our third-party production companies to have appropriate workplace policies and trainings in place and a clear process on how to report concerns. The concerns Ms. Suarez raised in July 2022 were investigated at that time and action was taken based on the findings.”
A spokesperson for 51 Minds Entertainment, Below Deck’s production company, added, “51 Minds is committed to providing an environment in which every member of the casts and crews on our productions feel respected and, most importantly, safe. 51 Minds provides mandatory harassment and sensitivity training for every series it produces at the outset of each new season and lays out a clear process on how and to whom to report any questionable activity.”
“With any complaint filed, a timely investigation is launched and, based on the findings, appropriate actions are implemented to ensure the safety of our cast and crew, up to and including termination. With regard to the incident reported by Ms. Suarez involving Mr. King, the case was investigated and reviewed as soon as it was submitted, and production acted accordingly based on the results.”
According to Saurez, she stayed inside her hotel room for a week following the incident with King and didn’t immediately return to work because she says she was upset, depressed, and her mental health declined; she says she even debated going home and not finishing out the rest of the season.
At the time, Suarez also reached out to Zach Klein, the COO of 51 Minds Entertainment, to report the incident. In emails reviewed by Rolling Stone, Suarez detailed the incident to Klein and wrote:
“[King] comes up behind me, puts his arms around me, holds me against his body, physically restraining me from leaving, and says stuff like no don’t go. I get out of his grip, tell him again that I have to leave, that I am not staying, and I go reach for the door knob and he comes over and puts both his hands on the door, with his whole weight, to push it shut. This whole time he’s laughing. I ask him to please let me out of the room, that I have to go. I then get a phone call from [the talent manager]. He sees and hears that I answer and he finally moves away from the door, allowing me to open it. I step outside, not even able to listen to what [the talent manager] is saying to me because I’m so overwhelmed at that point, and Gary grabs his room key, comes out of his room, again, is only in his underwear, letting the door close behind him.”
Suarez continued in the email to Klein, “Now that I’ve been able to sit down and process the situation little by little the past couple of days, I realize that I am not okay. It feels like it was taken more as a misunderstanding, than it was as a physical assault/sexual harassment… My feelings/emotions about what happened feel diminished. I can’t help but think, had it been a crew member, it would have been handled differently. I honestly feel quite traumatized by the whole situation.”
After emailing Klein, emails reviewed by Rolling Stone confirm that an HR representative for Banijay America, the parent company of 51 Minds, reached out to Suarez and asked her to have a conversation. Suarez says she spoke to the HR representative who then arranged for her to speak with a counselor. Suarez says the HR representative stayed in touch with her for the remainder of the season and told her the company was conducting an investigation into the incident; at one point, Suarez says the representative told her she spoke to other crew members and to King about what allegedly happened.
Later in the season, Suarez says the HR representative also asked her not to talk about the incident with other production staffers because “it was becoming water cooler talk” on set and it seemed like Suarez was “trying to rally the troops” against the show. Saurez says she wasn’t even alongside her fellow crew members in the week following the incident but because of her absence, people reached out to her and asked her why she wasn’t on set. Suarez says she told the HR representative that she explained what happened to the people who reached out to her and asked for clarification about whether or not she was “allowed” to talk about the incident with her colleagues. Suarez says the rep told her yes, she was allowed to, but discouraged her from doing it.
In later conversations, Suarez says she expressed to executive producers that she was upset about how the situation was addressed. She says executive producers responded by saying they originally offered to fire King from the show when the alleged incident happened. Suarez says she wanted leadership to make that decision based on the information they had and not put the responsibility on her to say whether or not she wanted King fired, especially since she didn’t actually have the power to enforce that decision. After the incident, Suarez says she only saw King in passing a couple of times around the hotel but that they never directly interacted or communicated.
Rolling Stone spoke to two other crew members who worked in production with Suarez at the time of the incident. They say Suarez told them about the alleged incident during filming. One of the crew members, who requested to remain anonymous because they still work on the series, tells Rolling Stone they heard about the incident when they were filming. They also say they’ve “constantly” witnessed King make other women on set uncomfortable with his aggressive pursuit of them.
“He’s next-level scary with women,” they say.
Three other people who did not work for 51 Minds Entertainment, NBC, or Below Deck spoke to Rolling Stone and say that Suarez told them about the alleged incident with King at the time.
Another crew member who requested anonymity out of fear of repercussions tells Rolling Stone later in this same season, they witnessed King grab a female cast member’s butt and continue to touch her inappropriately even though she said, “No,” and told him to stop. While filming at a beach club in Sardinia, the crew member says King was inebriated and they also witnessed King grab another production crew member’s genitals. During off days in between charters, Below Deck typically films cast members partying on and off the boat in their free time. It’s common to see cast members drunk and engage in sexual activity with one another on camera.
The crew member says they reported the issue on their walkie talkie, which they use to communicate with the executive producer, director, and other people working in the control room. According to production crew members, there’s a control room set up in one of the guest rooms on the boat where producers monitor live footage. When they’re filming on location off the boat, they set up an area nearby that acts as a control room.
“The girl was literally saying, ‘No, stop, don’t,’” the crew member says. “I’m explaining this over my walkie and no one’s acknowledging it.”
“The girl was literally saying, ‘No, stop, don’t.’ I’m explaining this over my walkie and no one’s acknowledging it.“
They say a producer eventually approached King and told him to stop. After the producer spoke to him, the crew member says King walked over to a camera operator who was on a break and grabbed his genitals.
“It was insane. There were multiple incidents of sexual harassment in front of multiple producers after this person had been given verbal warnings multiple times,” they say.
The crew member says these incidents were filmed but didn’t air on television. They say they’re not sure what happened to the footage of King’s alleged behavior or other footage that the production company doesn’t end up using for TV. Typically, the crew member says, producers and editors have access to raw footage filmed in the field at least until the editing stage.
“I had to promote and make this guy who just assaulted someone look awesome,” they say. “That was my job, to make this person look cool, capable, and exciting.”
The production crew member says after they were vocal about witnessing King’s alleged harassment on set throughout filming, they were not asked to return to the show after working for different iterations of the Below Deck franchise for years. Suarez also says she thinks she was retaliated against for reporting King’s behavior to the production company and that’s why she wasn’t asked to return to the show. Suarez says while King got to stay on Below Deck without consequences, she lost the opportunity to work after reporting the alleged misconduct. For Suarez, there wasn’t enough done to remove King from the show or hold him accountable after he allegedly exhibited inappropriate behavior toward her and other women.
“You’re an executive producer on the show and you’re not even worried that your cast member put his hands on me and is being a creep currently while being on TV?” Suarez says. “Somebody shouldn’t be able to keep a platform for being a gross creep.”
Productions’ handling of the incident with King exhibited a pattern to Suarez who says she told a producer about a separate incident that allegedly occurred when she filmed Below Deck Season 10. She says she was put in charge of accompanying the male cast members from a car to their hotel and bosun Ross McHarg made her feel uncomfortable.
“He was just making these weird, lewd, sexual, gross comments toward me to the point where the other boys in the car were like, ‘Shut up Ross, why are you saying these things to her?’” Suarez says. “There was stuff like that that I expressed to production as well and, you know, nothing happened thereafter.” (McHarg did not respond to requests for comment.)
Suarez says she told a producer about the alleged comments but did not formally report it or file a complaint with HR. A spokesperson for 51 Minds Entertainment also confirmed Suarez did not file a formal complaint with HR. Once the production company was made aware of the allegation when Rolling Stone reached out for comment on this story, they said they initiated an investigation into the alleged incident.
According to Suarez and three other staffers who worked in production for Below Deck, someone from HR delivers a sexual harassment and cultural sensitivity training before each season. Producers also allegedly tell staffers if something goes awry during filming to communicate it on their walkie talkies and someone in the control room will respond. At the beginning of the season, crew members say they’re also explicitly told not to break the “fourth wall” and interact with cast members under any circumstances.
“For a show like this where there is alcohol and sex involved, I think there should be an intimacy coordinator-type position on these shows or something like that,” one crew member says. “There should be some accountability and some standardization practice where it’s not just up to some dude [in the control room] who has been producing television for 20 years.”
Inspired by the SAG strike, former Real Housewives of New York star Bethenny Frankel has been vocal about what she calls the mistreatment of reality stars by networks and her desire for talent to unionize for better protections. Earlier in August, lawyers on behalf of a handful of unnamed reality stars sent a letter to NBCUniversal accusing the company of manipulation, covering up instances of sexual violence, and other claims regarding their reality shows. The purpose of the letter was to ask NBCUniversal to hold possible evidence ahead of litigation.
Suarez also thinks there should be protocols for crew members to follow when they witness or experience sexual harassment or misconduct from a cast member or anyone else on set.
“Nobody knew how to handle [my situation] and I think that’s why it was handled so poorly, because nobody knew what to do or what the right thing to do was. I was told there weren’t any protocols and the only thing was to reach out to HR but even then, nothing was really happening,” Suarez says.
“Why can’t you just get on TV and be like, ‘Gary had to be removed from the show for his misconduct?’ If anything, that would make me respect the producers and the show and everything a lot more if they were just honest instead of trying to sweep things under the rug, which is what feels like happened.”
On Aug. 18, King announced in an Instagram post that he’d be attending BravoCon, Bravo’s annual convention for fans and stars of the network’s extensive slate of reality shows. The weekend full of panels and fan events is set to take place in Las Vegas this November.