Captain Kerry says Below Deck only showed “a short part” of charter guest Kelly’s explosive meltdown and calls it the craziest experience of his career.
Things got heated aboard Below Deck this week, and Captain Kerry Titheradge is setting the record straight. In an exclusive new interview with PEOPLE, the Bravo star opens up about the shocking removal of charter guest Kelly and what viewers didn’t get to see.
The episode showed Kelly’s increasingly erratic behavior after a day of heavy drinking, culminating in police being called to remove her from the mega-yacht. But Captain Kerry says the drama was even more intense than what made it to air.
“We could only put so much into a 45-minute episode,” he explains. “But it was very, very, very intense for everybody in the vessel.”
Captain Kerry, who has seen his fair share of wild guests over the years, says this was the “craziest experience” he’s had in his entire career. From the moment Kelly stepped aboard, he says he had concerns. “Her energy was intense,” he recalls, adding that it was immediately clear she was someone to keep an eye on.
As the drinks kept flowing, so did the problems. Captain Kerry says he personally decided to cut Kelly off from alcohol—not as a punishment, but for safety. “Her enjoyment is secondary to her safety,” he says, noting that he instructed his crew to discreetly offer her sparkling water instead of embarrassing her in front of friends. But Kelly wasn’t having it.
Things escalated when she jumped into the water without a life jacket, ignoring orders and prompting a major safety concern. “I was trying to physically stop her from getting in the water,” he remembers. “I asked the crew to move up. They kind of made a wall so she couldn’t get past us.”
As Kelly grew increasingly aggressive, Captain Kerry says he made the difficult call to contact police—something he’s never had to do before. “She couldn’t stay with us. We weren’t the place for her to get better.”
He credits charter primary Helen with helping handle the chaos. “She had a very calming nature,” he says, noting that he asked Helen to accompany Kelly when she was removed to ensure she wouldn’t be alone in such a fragile state. “Helen’s sense of empathy made her the right person for that.”
Even in the midst of the chaos, Captain Kerry says he never wanted to see Kelly arrested. “I really had to impart to [the officers] what the situation was because she was a danger to herself more than anybody else,” he explains. “You only saw a short part of that.”
Navigating the incident was made more complicated by language barriers and jurisdictional issues. The police officers spoke French, and with multiple nationalities involved, Kerry had to carefully communicate the delicate nature of the situation.
Despite everything, Kerry says he still feels compassion for Kelly. “I looked at her like a wounded animal,” he shares. “Mental health is very important to me, and I could see that she just wasn’t there. She wasn’t herself.”
Captain Kerry reveals he’s seen Kelly since the charter, but the incident hasn’t been brought up.
With emotions high and the cameras rolling, Below Deck continues to show just how unpredictable life at sea can be. And as Captain Kerry proves, it takes serious leadership to keep things afloat—even when the waves hit hardest.
Below Deck airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo.
