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Kate Chastain Talks Raquel ‘Rocky’ Dakota’s Absence From ‘Below Deck’ Season 4

By Karen de Wilde
Published on: 07:18 PST, Jul 29, 2016

Kate Chastain apparently didn’t miss Raquel “Rocky” Dakota while filming Season 4 of Below Deck. On Monday, Bravo released the preview of the new season, showing that viewers will see Kate back as chief stew and Captain Lee Rosbach back as captain on the new season, which premieres on Tuesday, September 6. Viewers will also see Kelley Johnson, who starred on season 2, as bosun. The rest of the cast are new. In an interview with the Bravo podcast Watch What Crappens, posted on Thursday, Kate called the new season her favorite by far.

“It’s by far my favorite season…It’s so good. It’s so different than all the other seasons where it was just like charter guest drama, crew member, chef, chief stew drama, it’s just got such a new angle…for some reason the crew they had on, we all had very interesting new stories to bring to the show…I don’t think there’s ever been a season that took such a fabulous turn. If I could have made this season into a musical, I think I would’ve.”

Perhaps Rocky’s absence from Season 4 had a lot to do with Kate’s happiness? One of the podcast’s hosts mentioned that a listener sent in a Facebook e-mail saying that she met Rocky working at a coffee shop at a vacation/tourism spot and started asking her about the new season, to which Rocky responded, “Yeah, Kate’s still a b**ch!”

Kate responded that Rocky, whom she clashed with the entire third season, should just let it go.

“I respect her commitment to the cause but it’s just like, ‘Honey let it go. It’s only hurting yourself.'”

Kate also said that viewers didn’t even really see how crazy Rocky was.

“Well honestly they didn’t even show her craziness to the true level and I think considering the level of her crazy, I kept it pretty nice.”

The hosts then brought up the fact that Kate was in the news recently over her arrest for domestic violence. In June, TMZ reported that Kate was arrested in Melbourne Beach and booked for a felony domestic violence charge of battery by strangulation. TMZ reported that cops said that Kate bit her girlfriend in the forearm, bicep and leg, put a knee on her head, and choked her after unsuccessfully trying to kick her out of the house. Kate was released after posting $5,000 bond the following afternoon.

The preview for Below Deck Season 4 shows that Kate’s relationship with Ro Hernandez, a professional soccer player, will be shown. Since her arrest and booking, Kate has deleted all photos of Ro from her social media pages.

Kate Chastain told the Watch What Crappens hosts that she can’t talk about the incident just yet but does want to give her side of the story when she’s able to.

“Yeah it’s been a big year…yeah I’m excited, or eager, to talk about it but at this moment I can’t. But I should be able to in the near future.”

Kate did say, however, that Rocky’s social media posts that immediately made fun of her when news of the incident broke spoke a lot of Rocky’s character.

“She re-emerges on Twitter just to like speak up about that and I think that in hindsight it spoke of her character, not mine.”

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Raquel “Rocky” Dakota posted several Twitter and Instagram posts that basically said that Kate’s arrest proves that she was right about Kate all along and that Kate’s arrest is karma for how horrible she treated her during their time together on Eros. Rocky’s posts certainly made it seem as if she took glee in Kate’s embarrassment. In one video, Rocky even imitated Kate, whom she called Hannibal Lecter, taking a bite out of her girlfriend. Rocky, perhaps because she received so much backlash, later deleted the messages.

Captain Lee Rosbach certainly agrees with Kate that Rocky’s social media posts about Kate’s arrest just showed what kind of person Rocky is. At the time, Captain Lee chastised Rocky for taking pleasure in Kate’s misfortune.

Captain Lee Rosbach is still on Kate’s side. On Thursday, Captain Lee reminded everyone that they should not rush to judge Kate as there’s more than one side of the story.

One of the Watch What Crappens hosts commented that it’s Kate’s ultimate revenge that Rocky is not part of the fourth season. Kate agreed with the “karmic point.”

“I know it. That is such a good karmic point. She’s still wearing her mermaid tail, making lattes.”

Once they were done talking about Raquel “Rocky” Dakota, Kate Chastain mentioned Amy Johnson and Connie Arias, both of whom won’t be seen on the new season but with whom she’s still friends with. Kate revealed that she received a gift from Amy, who is Kelley Johnson’s sister and was on Season 2 with him and then Season 3 without him, the first day of filming the new season.

“I miss her so much. First day on the boat Kelley was like, ‘Here, Amy sent you a letter,’ and I’d always complemented her earrings, she had new earrings for every day…she had went and got me four different set of earrings.”

Kate also revealed that Amy has found love.

“She’s got a super hot super young South African captain boyfriend. Amy found double starfish. It’s amazing.”

As for Connie, who was a deckhand on Season 3, Kate explained that the Below Deck Season 3 finale episode was misleading in that it made it seem as if Connie was going to continue onto the Mediterranean and thus the spin-off Below Deck Mediterranean.

“She actually continued on the actual yacht that we had used, Eros…For the med season they hired a new boat and a new cast.”

Kate Chastain also revealed some information on the spin-off Below Deck Mediterranean, the first season of which ended on Tuesday night. Kate said that before the spin-off started filming, Captain Lee met with Captain Mark Howard, the spin-off’s captain, to give him some advice and heads-up on what to expect. Kate also said that Hannah Ferrier, the spin-off’s chief stew, messaged her prior to joining the show to ask her whether she should do it. Kate, who encouraged Hannah to do the show, explained that she had never met Hannah before but they have mutual friends from the yacht community. Kate complemented both Captain Mark and Hannah and said that she would work with both of them. Kate also confirmed that Ben Robinson really is as great of a chef as people say but just sometimes gets in trouble with timing.

[Image via Bravo TV]

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