On a recent episode of Below Deck Sailing Yacht, Ashley Marti hooked up with an intoxicated Gary King. In a later scene, Gary shared that he didn’t remember it and jokingly asked Ashley to make sure he was lucid next time.
Many viewers weren’t laughing, however. Some even took to Twitter and declared that she sexually assaulted him.
On the Beneath the Surface podcast, via Showbiz CheatSheet, Gary and Daisy Kelliher voiced concern for the third stew.
“Anything I can say, I guess, is that it wasn’t the first time that we hooked up,” shared Gary. “I would have wished I wasn’t that drunk, but I think people are making a bigger deal out of it than it was.”
Gary said he received messages from fans who were worried about him — while Ashley received messages of hate.
“Thanks to everyone for caring. I do appreciate that. But it was blown a bit out of proportion,” he said.
His costar Daisy added, “By people thinking they were standing up for you… They’re actually hurting a very young, vulnerable person.”
After the episode dropped, Daisy and Gary reached out to Ashley.
“I really didn’t watch the episode prior to messaging her,” said Gary. “I was just getting messages and comments about it all. So I figured that something would have happened. I messaged Ashley saying, ‘I haven’t watched the episode, but due to the messages that I’m getting, I can only imagine the messages that you’re receiving. So I’m really sorry about that. Don’t take anything personal and don’t listen to these people.’”
“And she replied saying, ‘I don’t listen to these trolls anyways’… It seems like she’s a strong person and it doesn’t affect her which is good because you can imagine getting messages and just slagging you off all the time when you don’t feel very good about it.”
Gary suggested that he’s not in regular contact with Ashley or Tom Pearson (the deckhand who slept with Ashley in an earlier episode).
The 32-year-old explained, “Both of them, like in the beginning episodes, they were complaining about age. That age is just a number and you’re so childish blah blah blah blah blah etc. etc. But then on the first night, Tom acted like a 12-year-old getting so pissed, that he vomited in the captain’s cabin… And Ashley, like an 11-year-old girl seeing the first guy she wanted to kiss and then just… attack.”
In the podcast, Gary was asked if Ashley really wanted to pursue him or if she was using it to get more screen time. “Well, I think her ways of trying to seduce a man were not very good,” he answered. “I think what she wants, she’ll get. I think she’s been a spoiled girl pretty much her whole life. So she’s always got what [she] wanted.”
“And it’s a little bit cringe,” he continued. “She told me and Tom… ‘Gary, all I wanted to do was hook up with you.’ Obviously, they didn’t show that but yeah, it was a little bit cringy. She’s a little bit desperate.”
Photos Credit: Laurent Basset/Bravo
