Season 6 of Below Deck: Mediterranean had a lot of turmoil between Lexi Wilson and the rest of the cast, but viewers didn’t get to see exactly how bad things got during filming. Back in August, executive producer Nadine Rajabi revealed to the media that she had to step in and stop a situation this season. Now, Cheif Stew Katie Flood is confirming that producers had to intervene when Lexi Wilson was getting violent towards Mzi Dempers in the crew mess.
Katie revealed this during the Below Deck: Mediterranean reunion after Andy Cohen asked about Lexi pushing Mzi in the crew mess. “Production actually stepped in,” Katie said. “Yeah, because it was getting so out of hand. They actually stepped in and like lost our sh*t like, “This is not what we are about.’ And if it goes any further I’m pretty sure Lexi would have been removed straight away. But I guess she reined it in at that point.”
“Something happens this season, which we don’t show,” producer Nadine Rajabi said in August on the Melissa Rivers’ Group Text podcast. “Where I’ve had to go out and stop the situation. So there’s a lot of times like that where I will not tolerate that. And it’s not OK. It’s unacceptable and those are the times when I will step in and go this isn’t OK or you’ve got to let people go in those situations.”
When asked about the boundaries producers have for the show, Nadine replied: “No violence. Never violence. Racism, sexism. Any of those things. There’s times where I’ve been prepared if there’s somebody that I feel is too drunk and they’re in danger. I’ve been prepared where I’ve gone out and I’m like hey get out of the jacuzzi this is not OK.”
During the same night when Lexi pushed Mzi in the crew mess, she had also got physical with Lloyd Spencer in the hot tub by rubbing her breasts in his face while calling him a p***y. He turned red and immediately got out of the tub and left. He later revealed that this behavior from Lexi was triggering for him because of abuse he had endured on a previous boat.
Lexi also said something very offensive to Mzi that same night. She told him he could “take his Afrikaans ass and go the f**k away,” while he was trying to calm her down. Afrikaans is a language used mostly by white people where Mzi is from in South Africa. Mzi was adopted by the white family his grandmother worked for after his mother died.
“Generally in our country, Afrikaans would be more of a white man’s language than a black man’s language,” Mzi says in interview during the episode, which aired in July. “So, I don’t know if she’s trying to play on the fact that I’m adopted and have a white family, but I think she was definitely trying to be derogatory and harsh. She’s just completely ignorant.”
Lexi claimed that she didn’t remember what she said to Mzi and others. One thing she kept shaming the others for was not having as much money as her. She continued this “poor shaming” up until she left.
Lexi was finally fired on episode 13 of the show after another verbal fight. Her explosive fight with almost everyone on the boat where producers had to intervene happened in episodes 5 and 6. Katie Flood came to Captain Sandy to express her concerns about whether or not Lexi should stay on the boat as her behavior had affected everyone. Sandy asked Katie to give Lexi another chance, and not worry about the “whole boat.”
“You’re a leader, rise. And take this individual, and change her trajectory,” Captain Sandy said. She pleaded with Katie to “invest” in Lexi instead of “dismissing” her. “Go lead,” she told Katie.
Captain Sandy had not witnessed Lexi’s behavior, and her casual pleading to give Lexi another chance after the verbal abuse, violence, and offensive language Lexi had exhibited to so many people the night before did not resonate well with the Below Deck Med audience.
