Why Below Deck Down Under's Aesha Scott Wasn't A Fan Of Chef Ryan McKeown

Things aren't always smooth sailing for the "Below Deck" crew. This rings true even for the "Below Deck Down Under" yachties.

According to bosun Jamie Sayed, though, conflict amongst the team is totally normal and expected. It's their workplace, after all. "You get your frustrations at people, you know? Yes, we had our frustrations, but, no, it just happens in this industry," he told Bravo TV. "It's not uncommon." Captain Jason Chambers echoed the same sentiment, saying that the pressure can sometimes get to people, thereby affecting their behavior and relationships with the rest of the yachties. "Every crew battles fatigue and working environments change and attitudes change," he told Us Weekly. "And then when the attitude changes, as I said, they lose focus."

But there are times when the consequences go far beyond "losing focus." Sometimes, it can lead to losing a member of the crew, like what happened with chef Ryan McKeown. After having multiple altercations with the team, most notably chief stew Aesha Scott, McKeown got himself fired from the ship.

As a longtime "Below Deck" steward, Aesha Scott got the opportunity to work with multiple chefs — some she got along with perfectly well, and some with whom she butted heads. Chef Ryan McKeown, however, turned out to be in a league of his own. Scott told Decider that she sometimes lets bad attitude slide if a chef is talented enough, but according to her, McKeown is not only a "bad chef," but he's also a certified "a**hole."

"By a long shot," she said when asked if McKeown was the most difficult chef she's ever had the displeasure of dealing with. "Chefs are mostly all a**holes. I've dealt with other chefs before who could be really mean, but they were amazing at cooking so I gave them a bit of a pass. Ryan was not a good chef." She added that McKeown showed no remorse when he'd screw up, so she wasn't surprised that he got fired eventually. "After a blow up, most chefs are rational enough to apologize for exploding on you, but Ryan didn't have a conscience and didn't care. He would throw tantrums and then not communicate with me," she continued. "Towards the end, I just left him alone to do what he wanted and he eventually got himself fired."

Scott also described the chef as arrogant. "If arrogant was, like, personified, it would be Ryan. He's a very arrogant man," she told Us Weekly. "I think that that's something that everyone — not just as a chef — it's kind of difficult to be around anyone that's arrogant."

Meanwhile, even before the show aired, chef Ryan McKeown already knew that he was going to be the resident villain of "Below Deck Down Under." He said that it was the production team's job to keep the series entertaining, and unfortunately, he had to be compromised.

"Everybody has a job to do and I've said it before, production has a job to do," he told Showbiz CheatSheet, adding that he knew he was getting ridiculed, and that he never let the criticism get to him. "There's a lot of great parts and a lot of great meals that I put out that won't make it. Beach picnics, et cetera. So, it's for the viewers, it's for their entertainment. And I recently connected with the Shake... Chatterjee from Love is Blind on Netflix. Who was like a supervillain and blew up every night. So him and I kind of started touching base. And yeah, I anticipated the hate. I really enjoy it because it's only going to make me go further. So, bring it."

While McKeown took it all in stride, Captain Jason Chambers gave him the boot anyway. "In the yachting industry, there's gonna be ups and downs. We're trying to achieve the high standard in hospitality and these guests are paying money and we need to constantly not lose that focus," he told Us Weekly. "If people can't see that, or they have an attitude against that, as a captain, I have to make changes."