‘Below Deck Mediterranean’ Season 9: Elena Dubaich teases ‘so much’ love triangle drama to come

Starting off with an absolute nightmare situation for any charter, lack of provisions including alcohol, Below Deck Mediterranean Season 9 (on Hayu in Canada) is just getting started with the drama. As star Elena Dubaich teased, there’s a lot more controversy to come, specifically related to the love triangle that formed between Dubaich and Bri Muller, both stews under Aesha Scott, and deckhand Joe Bradley.

“We haven’t even started with the drama on this season,” Dubaich told Yahoo Canada. “And Joe is going to end up being the crucial factor in so much of the drama that’s about to come.”

As we’ve seen so far this season, Bradley has been particularly flirtatious with both Dubaich and Muller, which we can expect to cause some issues between the coworkers.

“Watching it now, as a viewer, it’s so obvious what he’s doing,” Dubaich stressed. “It’s obvious that he’s flirting with her and me, but you’ve got to understand that he was always doing it in private.”

“We were both kind of under the impression that we had this connection with Joe and the other girl was just trying to take him away. There’s just so much that’s going to stem from that in the coming episodes.”

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While we’ll have to wait to see how Dubaich and Muller’s relationship evolves throughout the season, we know from this week’s Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen that Muller is blocked from Dubaich’s Instagram page. Maybe a taste of what’s to come on the show.

“Working with Bri in the beginning was definitely a little bit frustrating because I was also doing my job from the beginning, I didn’t have much experience in service so I already had so much stress trying to prove myself to my boss in my new job,” Dubaich explained. “And then having the added stress of picking up Bri’s slack a lot and making sure that she’s doing her job right as well was adding a big burden.”

“So I did take it upon myself to train her as much as it could and I’m glad I did. And, you know, let’s see how that whole story unfolds. That’s just about to begin, but I’m always happy to teach. I’m always happy to pass on any skills I have.”

‘I don’t really blame Gael for looking elsewhere’

But that’s not the only relationship drama of the season. While deckhand Gael Cameron came on board the Mustique ship in a relationship, we saw her trying to sneak around the cameras to get some alone time with fellow deckhand Nathan Gallagher. Of course, there’s really nowhere to hide on reality TV.

The extent of this fling was new to Dubaich, until the season started airing.

“I was not aware that Gael and Nathan had such a connection early on,” Dubaich said. “But with her boyfriend situation, her relationship wasn’t that stable at that point and her boyfriend wasn’t very supportive of her either.”

“If you love somebody and they’re going on a show like this, in particular, it’s a major life-changing opportunity. As a loving partner you would definitely want to be as supportive as possible, but he was kind of being more selfish and more [focused] on his own needs. So I think that’s kind of indicative of where their relationship was. So I don’t really blame Gael for looking elsewhere.”

Elena Dubaich calls late-night food fight with chef ‘a poor reflection on his character’

In the most recent episodes of Below Deck Mediterranean we saw chef Johnathan “Jono” Shillingford face criticism for serving cold food, much of it with some kind of “spice” that didn’t appeal to primary charter guest Gigi Fernandez.

This came after Dubaich got some heat from Captain Sandy Yawn for trying to wake up Shillingford when their first charter guests, influencer Jacob Ward and his friends, requested late-night food. Looking back, Dubaich still stands by her decision.

“I don’t think we should wake up the chef every single night, I completely agree with that,” Dubaich explained. “But in this particular situation where we had to say ‘no’ the entire day, this was one chance to go the extra mile for them, especially given the fact that it was on their preference sheets. They requested all of this.”

“So they wanted you know mac and cheese, grilled cheese, nachos, this and that, and the fact that Jono didn’t prepare it and also didn’t care to get up and do it once he was reminded, was a poor reflection on his character in that situation.”

‘I still have some room to grow’

For Dubaich, yachting isn’t her only source of income. As she revealed to Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live, she makes a significant amount of money through OnlyFans. So what keeps her in yachting? It’s the ability to learn and gain more skills.

“As much as everybody likes to make money, and money is needed, obviously, money is not a driving force in my life,” Dubaich explained. “I love skills. I love growth. That’s what I thrive on.”

“I’m in an industry where I feel like there’s a challenge for me to learn something new about that industry, there is a challenge for me to grow. … It’s what makes me attracted to being there. This whole chief stew position I’ve been working on attaining, it’s just been a growing process for me, and that’s what keeps me coming back to yachting. I still have some room to grow and learn in this industry.”