When it comes to the Below Deck Down Under cast, there’s way more drama off screen.
Ahead of the Monday, May 12, episode of the hit Bravo series, Harry van Vliet was asked during an Instagram Q&A why he was “no longer following” his costar Tzarina Mace-Ralph.
“TZ blocked me on Instagram after I suggested she calmed down her comments about the current season on Instagram,” Harry claimed. “I don’t support online blasting or bullying and didn’t like what I was seeing.”
Lara Rigby joined the conversation when she shared Harry’s post, adding, “Finally someone speaks out! Remember you only see a small snippet of what was really going on. I have kept very quiet about the situation on socials, but it’s peoples real lives affected by this! We need more people like Harry in the world.”
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Tzarina has recently weighed in on her onscreen drama with Lara, writing via Instagram this month, “I feel like I have always been a kind hearted empathetic individual who believes mental health is the corner stone of everything. I feel, however, when you get pushed into corners and have your back against the wall something changes inside … reaches a breaking point. I am well aware that the way l acted was spiteful, almost wanting someone to feel the same way I felt all this time. Sometimes someone just brings out the worst out in you and it is normal for any human being, it is a part of human nature. I was always kicked down by bullies at school and never stood up for myself thinking it was an act of kindness towards others.”
She continued: “People stick up for themselves in many different ways. Being isolated brings back trauma and this is how I handled the situation at the time. Have I replayed this situation in my mind after? A million times. Do I regret it? I do. But sometimes heart is a faster thinker than mind and that reaction was pure impulse. It happened and regardless of anything, l’m just proud that for the first time in my life I stuck up for myself even if it was in the worst way I could have done it.”
Viewers had a front row seat to a multitude of issues between the cast when season 3 premiered in February. Tzarina originally was at odds with her sous chef Anthony Bird, who accepted another job after criticizing her leadership skills.
“I had a challenge while being on my own for a bit. With a galley that size you are going to see a woman break internally,” she exclusively told Us Weekly in February. “I was already on five or six hours of sleep a night. But without a sous chef, I was running off four hours of sleep a night, so I really just needed some rest.”
Tzarina didn’t expect to be thrown into the deep end in the kitchen.
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“This is definitely the first time I’ve experienced something like this on a yacht and since I’ve been a head chef for about 11 years now. But normally I interview my sous chef, and I get to see if it’s a fit,” she added. “But with this, I was assigned a sous chef. So it was the first time in my career that I’ve ever had that sort of personality around me. That’s why I found it so difficult to manage because I’ve never been put in a situation like that before.”
Once Alesia Harris replaced Anthony, Tzarina found herself struggling to work with chief stew Lara. Based on their off screen interactions — or lack thereof — Tzarina and Lara didn’t figure out their issues.
Lara, for her part, had a rocky start trying to form an interior team with Brianna Duffield and Marina Marcondes de Barros.
“It’s very uncomfortable when the chief stew and the chef are fighting because you don’t want to take sides. You are literally there to do your job. You just want them to be professional,” Marina explained to Us in April. “If you have a problem personally, you deal with that after the trip is over — not in the middle of service. It was quite awkward and I wish they were a little more on top of it.”
Marina didn’t reveal which side she chose — but she offered hints.
“I cannot say that somebody was right or wrong. What I’m going to say is somebody is very used to cameras and knows how to play a part,” she teased. “They know how to give a lot of information and let the river flow into a certain direction. That’s all I’m going to say.”
Below Deck Down Under airs on Bravo Mondays at 8 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Peacock.
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