Mention It All - Listen Up Stews, A Chief Is Speaking Ft. Aesha Scott (Below Deck Down Under)

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

Below Deck fan fave Aesha Scott joins the show to celebrate the latest season of Below Deck Down Under. Aesha opens up about the challenges of being a chief stew, and how her TV experience has evolved over four seasons and two franchises. She teases some of the drama from the upcoming season, though thankfully it’s less of a nightmare than the last one. Later, she talks about the Below Deck community, and where she wants to go next. Check out our latest promo codes here: https://betches.com/promos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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See Store Online for details. Betches Media presents. Ha ha, laugh, funny. Mention It All, a Bravo by Betches podcast. We don't say that, but now we said it. With me, Dylan Hafer. We're going to check me, though. Hey, everyone.

Welcome back to the Mention It All podcast. I'm Dylan Hafer, and today I am so excited to be joined by a long time below deck universe favorite. You know her from Below Deck Med, of course. And now she is back for a second season of Below Deck Down Under on Bravo this time. please welcome Aisha hi I am great I we were talking before I got in the air I just had a chance to watch the premiere of below Derek down under season two you haven't even gotten to see it yet but I you were there so I still have lots of questions did you love it do you think everyone's gonna love it I think people are gonna love it and I'm excited for you guys to be back on Bravo this season and maybe some people that missed it the first time around will kind of you know get on the boat if you will exactly I'm so pleased that it switched over to Bravo this year because, you know, I know there's so many streaming services. Not everyone has all of them. So I hope everyone's got the opportunity to watch it.

And it's very exciting for me that New Zealand is getting at the same time as the state. Because often there's a little bit of a lag and all my family back home are very confused about what's going on. Yeah, I feel like a lot of the below deck crew, it's like you must be getting texts and calls that are like, how do I watch you on TV? And you're like, I don't know. All the time. All the time. The poor press people from Bravo, they get messages for me constantly.

How can someone watch it in Switzerland? How can someone watch it in England? How can someone watch it in Australia? Don't worry. I just need a list printed out. I get those same DMs and I'm like, look, I want everybody to enjoy everything, but I just don't have the time to look that up for you. But also, sometimes I'm like, have you ever heard of Google?

I get so many questions on my, you know, my Instagram stories and things of like, I'll put up like a curry or I'll put up something like that. And everyone's like, oh my God, what's the recipe for this? I'm like, it's red curry, babe. Google it. Google's so useful for so many things. Look, though, you've been on TV for a fair few years now and people love you enough to be caring about your curry recipes. So it's a good thing. I know.

Oh, absolutely. And I'm guilty of it too Sometimes it's just a nice way to start a conversation Totally So speaking of that This is your fourth season on below deck And I'm curious going back to It must be what four or five years ago now

That you were filming that first season How do you think this journey has kind of evolved It must be kind of crazy to look back Oh my goodness yes It must be about four years right Almost five years since I was second stew on sorocco with sandy and hannah and i can win romance with jack and you know i think at that time i was second stew for that season and the next season you have much less responsibility

and i i feel like i was just this happy little puppy running around doing these jobs and then season one of uh down under but my first time being chief stew and all the responsibility was on me i was just, I feel like I went from a happy puppy to dare in the headlights because it was just so intense and I was so stressed. And then this season, I'm so proud of myself because I feel like I got through the trenches and I came out the other side and I'm getting, you know, that happy puppy in me is coming back because I'm more used to the role. I feel way more in control. And I also think that I've grown in terms of how I manage my staff. You know, I used to be, I used to be, I didn't want to confront people and I didn't want to rock the boat. Whereas now I've got a very

fair way of being like, hey, you actually didn't live up to expectations. You should be doing this. Why aren't you doing this? And I'm just much, um, I'm much braver in hitting people up about things, I guess, which has been really nice because it's translated into my personal life. And I'm much more comfortable having these like conversations with people in my personal life too. Yeah. It's, that's a great thing. And we had, um, Daisy from below deck sailing yacht in the studio a few weeks ago. And we were talking about like some of the things where working on a yacht is such a

specific job and it seems so different. But then managing people is the same, having to find out information. if you don't know the answer to something is the same. And like growing within your job and as a manager and all of that stuff is something that everyone can relate to. And so it's been fun to see over the last few years you kind of get more comfortable in that role. Yeah.

Well, I think especially, you know, if you look at me last season with Magda, for example, and I feel like, you know, say Magda and Ryan, I let things go for longer than I should have because I was like, oh, I don't want tension, you know. She's a nice girl. though maybe she'll do better. And there's actually nothing wrong or nothing awkward about hitting someone up about something

if you do it in a professional and respectful way. So this season I'm more like, hey, I have asked you to do this. You know, what can we do about it? What's going on? And as I say, that's translated into my personal life where now I'm, if I'm feeling a certain way, I'm like, hey, that didn't make me feel very good

or this is what I expect from you. And it doesn't need to be a negative thing. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned Ryan. I mean, going back to last season, we didn't get a chance to talk during that season, but oh boy, I felt so bad for you having to put up with that whole situation in the galley. That was just some cruel twist of fate because as I said, I was already so stressed out with, it was my first season as Chief Stu. I was so desperate to prove to Bravo that I could. be a really good chief stew. The boat was massive. And, you know, I didn't have, Toomey was really strong,

but Magda wasn't very strong. So I was already, I already had so much on my plate, just trying to manage my interior team and, and the boat and the guests. And then to have a chef that gave me so much attitude at the same time, I just was,

what do I need to do? Red, it's like you, you show up for your season, and you don't know who you're going to get on the other side and who's going to be on your crew? And it's like, oh, God, this is everything you didn't need. Well, that's what makes it so hard. I think the viewers watching, they're like, oh, yeah, they're working really hard.

They've got all these chartered that's difficult. But I think people don't appreciate enough how hard it is when you add on the fact that we have just met everyone the day before. You don't know what your team's strengths are, what their personalities are like. You don't even know where, often you don't even know where the decoration cupboard is on the boat, you've just moved on. And then you have to do this whole season together. So that first charter is absolutely killer.

I always think to myself, I always think to myself, just get through the first charter. And then if you can get through the first one, everything will be okay. Because that's when you're finding where all the cupboards are. That's when you're finding out what your stews are actually like. It's a mayhem. You also forget watching the show that you're watching one episode every week, whereas on the boat, it doesn't stop. It's a few weeks long. And we're seeing every single day of that.

So like something that happened on the show a month ago was really like four days ago in your experience. Well, and that's the thing. It's when we are filming the show, so it's about six weeks. And it's every single day, minimum 16 hour days. And I tend to not take breaks because I just get stressed that, you know, I feel like every time I take a break, something goes wrong. And so for me, it's like 16 hours of absolute nonstop, like running, sorting, serving, very on and entertaining the guests. Like my mind is going a million miles a minute. And when you're doing that every single day for, it's like six and a half weeks, you just get to the end of it.

And it's just like everything in you is depleted. It's so intense. But you also feel this really amazing sense of achievement. Yeah, and you've got some, you know, some tip money that doesn't hurt to go on with. Oh, that's very nice. It's so lovely. I tend to come off and live off that for as long as I can. I mean, as you should, like, look, you're working hard, like you said, for those six weeks, it's go, go, go.

So then, you know, it's worth it to take a break. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And I always go through it way too quickly. But whatever, it's free money, really, isn't it? I appreciate that you can look at. look at it that way. I don't know if everybody would feel the same. So good, so good, so good.

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Work your magic. Coming back for this season, were you, after season one of Down Under, you had that first, you know, kind of a tough season as a Chief Stu. Were you, was it an easy yes to come back for another year? Like, yeah, I want to do that again. When do we leave? Absolutely. It's like this weird thing where if your parents tell you not to tell the stove because you'll burn yourself, like all you want to do is touch it. And it was like, you know, it's the hardest.

It truly is, and I'm not being dramatic. It truly is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life is filming below deck. It is exhausting. But it's this like addictive, exhausting where you really want to throw yourself back in the trenches again just to see how you'll cope. I totally understand that. And I think having you back with Captain Jason this season is a great dynamic. People really love Jason last season. so well that actually like even that plays such a big role into me wanting to come back because

he just supports me so so much you know he is my captain but he's also a very good friend and it's just so nice knowing that if i'm ever actually struggling or i ever have way too much on my plate i know that i can go to him and be like just do my fucking dishes okay and he'll come down and he'll do the dishes and he'll just like do something to take something away from my workload. And he doesn't do it because I'm telling him he has to. Like he's doing it because he really wants to help the team. Yeah. Obviously you weren't a chief stew when you were working under Captain Sandy.

But how do you compare there to kind of, they have very different management styles, I would say, just from watching the show. Yeah, I think with Sandy, it was always more like, and this is possibly also because I was second stew when I was with her. It was just more like a regular yacht relationship. You know, it's like very hierarchical and I kind of just viewed her as my captain and very much respected her as my captain. And she kind of had that managerial kind of role. Whereas with Jason, I like I do, I do respect him as my captain, but to me he's more like, he's more like my equal, you know, like we're just mates. We're like, we're like squabbling siblings sometimes.

times. And yeah, he's much more like my friend and just right in there with me. Yeah. I think, I mean, there must be a part of it too that when you came into below deck med, it was already this kind of machine that had been around for a few years, whereas down under, you know, you started from scratch. Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, Jason and I kind of got, we had this really beautiful opportunity, which you get when starting a series where we got to go in. And, decide what we wanted the vibe of the series to be. And yeah, and so we got to create that environment. And Sandy is absolutely my friend as well.

I think she's absolutely awesome. But it's just, you know, I'm not sitting in the bridge every morning putting her contacts in the way I'd put Jason's contacts in. I can't quite picture that with Sandy, I have to say. It's just so funny that this whatever your old man is. Like he still can't put contacts in. So funny. And he struggles to take them out too.

Some days I have to take them out for him as well. Well, I mean, it sucks for him then that the charter season is only six weeks and you're not there, you know, year round. I know. We just did an interview before and he had his glasses on because, you know, if I'm not around, he doesn't know. He used to wear his glasses. Oh, my God. Well, we're glad to see Jason back this season

But other than him, you have a fully new crew that you're working with In episode one, Charter 1, you're starting off Short-handed on both the deck And the interior, which is Yeah, I was not envious of that position. So how did you approach that? You know, you're showing up

for a new season and it's like No thirds do and no. deckhand? Well, you know what? I think I'm just someone that I know, I'm very faith, I've got a lot of faith in my capabilities and I just, I'm not a, what do you call it? I'm not dramatic in the sense that I know that everything, everything that you get given you can achieve in some way. And so I was in that situation and I'm like, you just have to think, you know what, it's not the end of the world. We're going to get this done. It might not. be 100% perfect, but we can make it 99% perfect. We're just going to have to do the best that we can do.

And luckily, the stew that I had to begin with was a very hard worker. And she picked up on everything very quickly. So we somehow just got it done. And I think as well, you're so fresh and you've got the cameras on you and you're so pumped up with adrenaline that you're like, we just have to deal with it. And you've got the energy to do it at that point. Tell me a little bit about the boat that you guys were on this season. It's a converted fishing boat from 1977. How does this compare to your past experiences of the yachts that we've seen on the show? Yes, so this boat is, as you say, converted fishing boat.

So it's much more like, it's more relaxed, but the way that they have refurbished it, it's still absolutely stunning. Like the state room is gorgeous. the saloon is gorgeous but I think for me it was such a gift because Thalassa

was outrageously big like the size of Thalasa for three stews was an absolute joke it was so wide the girth on that thing was outrageous so it was just not very manageable and so to get given a boat

that had one less story on it and it was skinnier. It was just like all around a little bit smaller. And so for me, it was just so much easier to manage. So I was very, very grateful for it. And I think it really suited, it suited the part of the world that we were in, you know? Because it's a tropical vibe.

We were diving all the time. And it really suited where we were. It's interesting watching the show not having worked on a boat like that. You forget that something like the size of the boat can really impact. how your team works and what you're able to accomplish versus, you know, feeling like you're running up, you know, how many flights of stairs every time someone needs a drink. Like that can actually change the whole dynamic of the team. Oh my goodness. Absolutely. Like how long it, as you say, how long it takes to run a drink up,

how long it takes to run food up. You're getting provisions and you're having to take it up two big flights of stairs instead of one big flight of stairs. All these little things really add up. you know, turnover day, how much surface area we have to clean and we have to vacuum and take care of. It all adds up. And I feel like every meter that you add on is

just exhausting. But it's like the bigger the boat is like I'm just tired. Like I don't, you know, it's a lot. Exactly. So no, yeah, I really, really, really liked the boat this season. And I think Australia is a much more relaxed kind of place. We always

provide the best service that we possibly can. I'm very staunch on that no matter how relaxed the boat seems but I think the way the boat was set up and with the diner it had quite a like a casual dining area out the back and I think it actually played a really

big role in making the guests feel more relaxed and then they sometimes it wasn't a good thing because I think the guests got so relaxed sometimes that they did play up a little bit but it was also a lot of fun. We yeah I mean the first episode we see ends with the guests uh jumping in the water at

night after they've been told not to so yeah maybe not not always the best thing. Yeah the guests this season um I feel like had almost as much drama as the crew they were they were we had a lot of interesting people come on but I think you know I was trained in very formal silver service which is more like how the met is and I can really thrive in that environment. But I also find I love having banter with the guests. I really, really enjoy it. And so I feel like this was a really cool environment to just give the guest shit and they love it. I always, it always seems more fun when you have guests that you can kind of like have a

relationship with versus like, oh, some rich old people who don't actually want to speak to you. Oh my goodness. Yes. Like if you can get yourself to a point where you and the guest. It feels more like your mates than you're serving them. Then to me, that's so successful. And all of the guests that we had on, by the time they left, they really felt like they were our friends.

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Tell me about your dynamic with them. So, I mean, me and the girls, we are just such a good unit. I think, as I say, the last year to me was absolutely amazing. And Magda, she wasn't the best worker, but I think she's a lovely human. She just wasn't quite in the right headspace to be a stew. And so this year I was really grateful because Laura and Margo both were coming in, like guns blazing. They wanted to work so hard and they really wanted to be there.

So that was so, it was such a treat getting to start a season with that kind of dynamic. And then Zarina, I mean, I don't want to give away too much, but I can tell you that there was a much more love between us than there was between Ryan and I. I share a cabin with her. It would be hard for things to be, I think, worse than last season's chef dynamic. So I don't think that's too much of a spoiler. That would be way too cruel. So yeah, it's definitely a lot better between the chef and I this season.

And we even shed a cabin and I don't do that lightly with chefs. So much more pleasant. I'm curious from one thing that I like about these below deck shows and the way that the kind of universe has grown is seeing people from the different franchises interact. I know you were at BravoCon last year. It was so fun to see a lot of you guys together. Is there anyone from another show that you haven't gotten to work with that you wish you could? Oh, well, I. Yeah. Oh, it's so hard. There's so many people. I think that I would really, really like to do a season with Haley. She's, you know, from Below Deck 10 with Fraser. Oh, and Fraser. Oh, my goodness. But Haley, I remember I watched her season when I was doing Galley Talk. And there's just something about her. I was like, you are loose and you were crass and you were happy and you were just so unapologetically.

who you are while also being a really hard worker. I just think she would be such a fun stew to have under me. She had a really good vibe. I feel like there's something about like a second stew who's like a hard worker but doesn't take themselves too seriously. Like that's the perfect second. Anyone that will work hard while at the same time absolutely taking the person, like ripping the shit out of themselves, making fun of themselves,

I think it's such a beautiful quality to have. So I just really like being around those kind of people. Yeah, it's such a fun cast of characters that have been on these shows and see when you guys get together. It's always like so enjoyable. Oh, BravoCon was so cool. And actually, I don't know if you saw it, but I was in London a month or two ago.

And we kind of ended up having an unofficial little reunion of everyone that was in London. you know, Courtney, Daisy, Fraser, Haley, who else? Dave, there was a bunch of us below-deck people there. And I just love them so much. I feel so grateful to be part of this beautiful, weird family. And I think because it's something, because it's so difficult, it's such hard work, and it's something that so few people will ever understand. We do really tend to cling on to each other and support each other and love each other and we just have this beautiful family. Totally. I think that's amazing

and getting to see you guys work so hard all over the world. I mean, all the different countries and stuff that below deck has been to is really amazing. And I think Australia feels like such a unique special thing. I mean, seeing the diving with the coral and all of that, like it really is so special. It was gorgeous. It was always on my bucket list to dive the Great Barrier Reef.

And I remember, I remember so clearly the first time Jason said that I could go and dive with the guests during the first season. I cried. I was in the pantry just crying because I'm like, I can't believe I get to do this. And then you go down there and it's literally like a direct copy of finding Nemo. Well, maybe find a Nemo copy there. But it's like whatever you're watching. that exact thing in real life is down there. It's just stunning.

Yeah, definitely a bucket list for me too. Do you know how small Nemo is though? When you're watching the show, I mean, he looks small, but he's not that small. And then you go down there, it's tiny. The little Nemo fishies are like this thing. No, you're right. You're right.

Everything is like, oh, there's like billions of fish that side, you know, like, it doesn't feel as special. It's just pretty. His tiny cameras to film him. I'm curious, is there anywhere in the world that you haven't gotten to work yet that is, you know, kind of next on your bucket list if you were to leave Australia? I actually would really like to go around like the Maldives kind of area because I've never been in that part of the,

you know, got like Maldives and Sri Lanka. And I've never really been in that part of the world before. and it just looks absolutely stunning. So that would be really cool. I'd love to go back to Croatia because I really, really liked it there. And then even doing something in Southeast Asia would be awesome.

Yeah. There's so many places. There's so many places. The below decked Thailand one year and it was like so incredible with the islands and all of that. Yeah, it would be. And it's awesome because then when you finish filming

when you're in a country like that, you would just, I would just stay on a month. than just keep traveling around the area. Yeah, that's where the tip money comes in. Exactly. And much cheaper to travel around there than traveling around the mid. So your money would go a lot further. That's true.

You get a massage every day. Before we go, we have a whole season of Blowdeck Down Under to look forward to you. I am really excited to watch it along with everyone. Can you just summarize maybe in a few words, maybe a few adjectives, what this season is going to be. Oh, golly. Funny, sexual, dramatic, sensitive,

interesting. It's really one of those seasons that it's so hard to say. And it's not like I can even give anything away because so much happens. It's one of those seasons where, once we get into it, you know, after a couple episodes, every single episode is going to leave people like, oh my God, what? Oh, my God, what?

Oh, my God. It's just like up and down and up and down and up and down. And I really think it's going to be one of those seasons that everyone is going to have a group chat talking about what the fuck this happened. Well, it sounds like it was exhausting to film, but hopefully it sounds like it'll be really fun for us to watch. It will be. It really, really will be.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Aisha, for joining me today. Oh, such a pleasure. you for talking to me. And thank you everyone for listening. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen. You can follow us on Instagram at Bravo by Betches. And until next time, be cool. Don't be all like uncool. Mentioned at all is produced by Dylan Hafer, Sean Kilby, Jorge Morales Pico, and Rebecca Sousa McCat. Editing by Horacee and Rebecca Sousmakat. Editing by Horvarez, Social media by Dylan Hafer, guest booking by Dylan Hafer and Ali Friedlander.

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