Below Deck Sailing Yacht is coming back for season 5 after Gary King’s sexual misconduct scandal.
Bravo announced on Monday, September 16, that the next season reunites Captain Glenn Shephard, chief stew Daisy Kelliher and Gary as they spend their charter season in Ibiza. The rest of the cast includes chef Cloyce Martin, chef engineer Davide Morosi, stews Diana Cruz, Danni Warren and deckhands Keith Allen and Emma Crouch.
The upcoming installment comes more than one year after Below Deck Sailing Yacht wrapped up its fourth season on Bravo in July 2023.
Gary’s future as a cast member has been up in the air, however, since a production assistant from the show accused him of making unwanted advances while filming season 4.
In a Rolling Stone exposé, which was published in October 2023, Samantha Suarez and other former employees, who asked to remain anonymous, accused Bravo of allegedly helping cover up Gary’s inappropriate behavior.
“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,” one of the accusers alleged. “I had to promote and make this guy who just assaulted someone look awesome. That was my job, to make this person look cool, capable and exciting.”
Samantha recalled being asked to look after Gary when he allegedly got drunk. Once filming wrapped, Samantha remained with Gary in his hotel room before he tried to stop her from leaving by pressing himself against her. Samantha alleged that Gary refused to let her leave until she started to fight back.
According to Samantha, she alerted producers about the incident, who told Gary to sleep on the boat on days when the crew wasn’t filming as a way to keep him out of the hotel.
Bravo addressed the allegations in a statement to Rolling Stone, saying, “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.”
Gary has maintained his innocence since news broke about the claim. “I know [that I did nothing wrong], and I know the truth but it still hurts when people will tell lies to bring you down,” he replied to a fan via Instagram one month later.
In the aftermath, Gary didn’t appear at BravoCon in November 2023 despite initially being announced as a guest. He has since stated that he wasn’t ruling out a Below Deck Sailing Yacht return.
Gary replied to several Instagram users in December 2023 who reminded him there’s a “life after” Below Deck.
“I hope so, will have to see but will definitely be trying to stay on peoples tv screens ☺️,” Gary wrote back. In a separate comment, Gary maintained that he would return to reality TV, adding, “I will do and hopefully be back on your screens, everyday I’m trying to better myself so hopefully if they ask me back you’ll see this.”
