“Below Deck Sailing Yacht”
On 1 July 2013, Bravo premiered a show entitled “Below Deck,” which followed the experiences and interactions of crew members, who work and live on a chartered superyacht. The American reality television series was received well, and went on to become successful – the first season attracted an average of 1.4 million viewers for every episode, which prompted the producers to explore four spin-offs with a similar concept ,entitled “Below Deck Adventure,” “Below Deck Sailing Yacht,” “Below Deck Down Under,” and “Below Deck Adventure.”
The second spin-off, “Below Deck Sailing Yacht,” premiered on Bravo in February 2020. The reality television series promised to follow the premise of its parent show by letting viewers onto the sailing yacht, and showing them the interactions of the vessel’s crew members. The vessel in the show is a 177-foot sailing yacht that took its voyagers to Greece in the first season, Croatia in the second, and Spain in the third and most recent season of the show. The typical crew on the sailing yacht comprises the captain, chief engineer, first officer, a chef, chief stewardess, 2nd and 3rd stewardesses, and three deckhands. The captain and chief engineer have returned for all three seasons of the reality series, while the first officer who replaced the initial officer has returned for the second and third seasons alongside the chief stewardess. All other crew members are replaced every season.
The third season of “Below Deck Sailing Yacht” aired between February and June 2022. In the season, Glen Shephard returned to the Parsifal III as the captain with Colin Macrae as the chief engineer, Gary King as the first officer, and Daisy Kelliher as the chief stewardess. A new chef, Marcos Spaziani made all the meals, while Gabriela Barragan and Ashley Marti were stewardesses. The crew was completed by Scarlett Bentley, the junior stewardess, and three deckhands Keslie Goglia, Tom Pearson, and Barnabay Birkbeck.
Ashley Marti
The season was Ashley Marti’s debut in reality television and fame. Ashley is a New Yorker, who moved to South Florida to experience life by the shore. When the Covid-19 pandemic struck, Ashley, who had long admired a career on deck, made her dreams come true and started working on a yacht. Her new career took her up the East Coast and later to the Bahamas. With her experience working and living on a yacht, she easily earned a spot on the show as a stewardess on Parsifal III.
As soon as she boarded the yacht and the filming started, Ashley let her fellow stewardess, Gabriela, know that she had her eyes set on the first officer, Gary, inadvertently setting the stage for an incident that would turn the fans of the reality series against her towards the end of the season. After laying claim to Gary, Ashley let Gabriella know that she hoped that the two of them would not end up in a fight over a man.
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Ashley’s first conflict with a fellow cast member was over rank. When she first got to the yacht, Ashley thought that she and Gabriela had the same level of work experience and expected to be placed in the same or higher rank than her fellow steward. Ashley hoped to become the second stewardess even after she learned that Gabriela was more experienced, having worked for years as a bartender and craft cocktail waitress, and being so experienced in the field that she had been invited to judge several bartending competitions. Naturally, Gabriela became the 2nd stewardess, relegating Ashley to 3rd/junior stewardess, which infuriated her.
Ashley responded to her perceived injustice of missing out on the position of 2nd stewardess by making multiple attempts at making the now superior stewardess look bad in front of the chief stewardess. She would slack on her duties to annoy Gabriela, deliberately leave cabinets disorganized for her supervisor to reorganize and perform her duties sloppily unless the chief steward was around, when she would do them impeccably. Ashley’s actions earned her the disdain of viewers and fans, who were infuriated by her behavior and called her out for being spiteful and hurting other people such as Tom Pearson, with whom she hooked up, who later lost his job on the yacht for becoming too distracted.
Love Triangle
In the 17 episodes that made up the third season of the show, Ashley was involved in two love triangles. First, she made her intentions to pursue Gary clear and flirted with him every chance she got. However, Gary rejected her and seemed to be interested in the two women above Ashley’s rank, Daisy and Gabriela. After Gary’s initial rejection, Ashley turned to one of the deckhands and hooked up with Tom. However, she didn’t stop pursuing Gary, leading to a confrontation with Tom, who emptied a bottle of tequila over Ashley’s head when he caught her brooding over unrequited affections from Gary. Tom was fired soon after, allowing Ashley the freedom she needed to dedicate all her energy to winning Gary’s attention.
With Tom gone, Ashley entered the second love triangle of the season. She joined Gabriela, who had developed an interest in Gary, in the battle for his affection. She succeeded when she and the first officer made out but was disappointed when he didn’t choose her over the 2nd stewardess who graced his bed the night Ashley demanded that he makes his choice between her and Gabriela. The triangle widened when Gary showed interest in Daily, Ashley and Gabriela’s supervisor.
Ashley got some reprieve when Gabriela left the yacht after a miscommunication led her to make a mistake when serving dinner to the guests, which caused a heated argument between her and the head chef, leading Gabriela to withdraw from the rest of the crew, eventually deciding to leave the yacht for the sake of her mental health. Although the decision came was a shock to the captain, Glenn, he let Gabriela go and hired a new junior stewardess. While the rest of the crew was sad to see Gabriela leave, Ashley was elated since she would receive more tips.
Gary ext turned to Daisy, and flirted openly with the chief stewardess leading Ashley to explode in anger. The tension between Ashley and some of the crew members worsened when Scarlett replaced Gabriela in more than the crew. She piqued Gary’s interest to become the newest person in the love triangle, much to Ashley’s frustration. When Ashley saw Gary flirting with the new junior stewardess, she caused an embarrassing scene, prompting the captain to intervene and instruct Gary and Ashley to clear everything up. She infuriated the show’s fans again when she insisted that Gary should have respected her, and not flirted with Scarlett.
Below Deck Sailing Yacht's Love Triangle Gets Even More Complicated in Awkward Preview https://t.co/0wdenKoX3w
— E! News (@enews) April 5, 2022
Sexual Assault Allegations
Evidently, Ashley was a drama magnet in the show. However, the incidents she caused or escalated were limited to underhanded comments, angry explosions, and failure to complete her duties satisfactorily. She didn’t do anything that fans considered breaking the law, until one night when she had drunken sex with Gary.
The incident started with shots of Ashley and Gary in the hot tub. Viewers watched as Ashley joined a drunk Gary and the two made out. Gary stopped the couple from going any further when he got up abruptly and went to his room. The following morning, Gary reported having a hazy memory and not recalling anything that happened the previous night. Meanwhile, Ashley hinted at the two having continued what they started in the hot tub by saying she massaged his back, but his pants ended up coming off.
Ashley confirmed the extent of what happened that night days later in a conversation with Scarlett. She told the new junior stewardess that she and Gary had a sexual encounter, and called out the first officer for downplaying the incident. In another alcohol-induced revelation, Ashley chastised Gary for his eagerness to move on to his new love interest, Scarlett. The revelation riled fans who recalled that Gary was drunk on the night she alleges she had sex with him, raising allegations of sexual assault. The fans looked forward to seeing Ashley clear up the claim that Gary was too drunk to have consensual sex during the reunion, which was released as the 18th episode of the season.
The Reunion
On the day of the reunion, Ashley was conspicuously absent. She wrote a statement on Instagram letting her supporters know that she had chosen not to participate, and felt that she couldn’t tell her side of the story fully since it would be edited out by Bravo. She urged her fans to respect her decision. The show’s fans responded with mass outrage, accusing her of failing to show up to avoid accountability for her actions throughout the season, particularly having sex with an intoxicated crew member.
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Surprisingly, Gary defended Ashley against allegations that she assaulted him, explaining that he had hooked up with her before when he wasn’t drunk. While he acknowledges that hooking up with her the first time was a mistake, he doesn’t hold the sentiments his supporters seemed to hold that Ashley did something to warrant the hate that was directed at her. He added that had he felt assaulted by Ashley, he would have spoken up against it. His words didn’t pacify the fans or crew members because when asked who he would not wish to hire again as a crew member, the captain chose Ashley. His sentiments ended Ashley’s stint as a stewardess on Parsifal III.
OnlyFans
Ashley responded to the end of her place as a cast member on “Below Deck Sailing Yacht” in the typical unfiltered fashion she had come to be known for on the show. She called out the people who were calling her out in a scathing response, telling them to continue enjoying the show from their mothers’ couches without having done anything worthwhile with their lives. In a tweet, she promised to start fighting back by calling trolls the same horrible names they call her and declared that her life is amazing.
After leaving the show officially, Ashley is concentrating her energy on building her social media following across several platforms. She is active on Twitter, and has amassed a following of over 4000. On her Twitter Bio, Ashley displays a picture of herself and links to her Instagram, TikTok, and OnlyFans. She has over 80,000 followers on Instagram, on which she collaborates with some brands to promote their merchandise, displays a link to her OnlyFans as well, and posts pictures that invite fans to follow her to the internet content subscription service.
Ashley shared her OnlyFans debut publicly on Twitter, and credited the network that produces “Below Deck” with her success on the platform. In her message, she thanked Bravo for making her famous and giving her free publicity, which helped drive traffic to her OnlyFans channel, revealing that she makes significantly more money on it than she did in all her time on “Below Deck Sailing Yacht.” When writing on OnlyFans, Ashley revealed that she loves her experience on the platform, and is particularly thrilled that only takes a few hours a day to make what she earned in six weeks of “Below Deck.”
According to the “Daily Mail,” Ashley’s followers on OnlyFans part with a $12.50 subscription fee, which grants them full access to her content for one month. In July 2022, she had gained 4,100 fans and raked in an estimated $50,000 in earnings from the platform. In the seven months since then, she’d adjusted her subscription fee down to $9.99 per month, made over three hundred posts, and gained a large following of fans who consume her content, which she curates from fans’ suggestions and has an Amazon wishlist from which fans can buy items for her to use on themed content. Her wishlist features a range of underwear, sex toys, shoes, costumes, and a washing machine. She promises to respond to the message of every fan who leaves her a tip. Her focus now is building her career as an influencer on the platform.
