Eddie Lucas recently spoke out about his feelings behind Chief Stew Heather Chase’s use of a racial slur during a recent episode of Below Deck, revealing he thinks production mishandled the situation. Fans were first introduced to Eddie in season 1 of the show as a deckhand before being promoted to bosun for seasons 2 and 3. In season 3, Eddie’s relationship with third stew Raquel “Rocky” Dakota was featured as a major storyline. Eddie was in a relationship at the time of the boatmance and wanted to keep the whole thing under wraps, however Rocky wasn’t okay with that and revealed their relationship to the crew late in the season. His denial that a relationship between them existed, when fans knew otherwise, led to his demise and fans viewing him as a villain.
Season 8 saw Eddie’s return to the show, and season 9 features him in his new role as both a bosun and chief officer. This season has given Eddie his fair share of struggles with his deckhands, including an issue between Rayna Lindsey and Heather. In a recent episode, Heather can be heard calling Rayna a racial slur while they were walking back to the table from the bathroom. She said it again while singing a song on the boat. At this point, Rayna called her out on it and told her it wasn’t okay to use that word. Heather apologized on the spot, but was later heard doubting whether or not she actually said it. Rayna then complained to Eddie but was upset with his response.
Eddie is now speaking out about who is really to blame for mishandling the whole situation. As reported by Reality Blurb, Eddie thinks production is the one who handled the situation poorly, and that he thinks they edited it to look different than it was. He claims production was terrified of the situation and wanted it discussed as less as possible and edited the show to make it seem smaller than it was. Eddie says production told him over and over again to stop talking about it because if he did it would mean the death of the show. According to him, he wanted to tell Captain Lee about the incident as soon as Rayna reported it to him, but an executive producer was waiting outside his cabin to tell him that would be the last time it was ever discussed.
On the topic of his conversation with Rayna, he claimed that when she first came to talk to him, she didn’t make it seem as if it was that big of a deal. He claims she also didn’t want him to take the issue up to Captain Lee, claiming she didn’t feel comfortable doing so yet. Based off the way she was acting during the conversation led him to believe she wasn’t greatly affected by Heather’s comments, which is why he reacted to her the way he did. Eddie says he doesn’t appreciate production editing the conversation to make it seem like he was turning a blind eye to racism, and that he eventually took the issue up to Captain Lee and suggested Heather be fired for her actions. While he says he did all this, he doesn’t know how much of it will be left in the show.
Bravo has been criticized multiple times for the way they have handled racial issues in the past, so why would they choose to take this route when it came to Rayna and Heather? Below Deck is a popular show, so one would assume Bravo would do anything to keep it on fans’ good side.
