A Below Deck Mediterranean crew member wanted by police in Australia is still on screen in New Zealand right now. Bravo confirmed this week it's done working with him.
Nathan Gallagher, 28, works as a deckhand and boatswain on the Bravo reality series. He was arrested in Sydney in December, accused of a domestic violence incident involving his then-partner and Below Deck co-star Gael Cameron, with whom he shares an infant son. He didn't front for a Burwood Local Court hearing on 1 September. A magistrate convicted him in his absence on three charges, including assault and choking. New South Wales Police believe he's fled the country, and have told the public not to approach him if spotted.
A second warrant sits in Ireland too. It's over an unrelated assault charge from 2022.
Bravo told several outlets this week that Gallagher's time with the network is over. "Bravo does not plan on working with Nathan in the future," a spokesperson said. The current, eleventh season of Below Deck Med was filmed before his arrest and features Gallagher working aboard the charter yacht Akira One in Croatia. Bravo says it will air as originally shot.
Gallagher disputes parts of the allegations against him. In a statement through Rolling Stone, he said he holds video and message evidence he believes adds context that hasn't been made public. He also admitted making mistakes, saying he'd "take responsibility for my own actions."
New Zealand is eight episodes into season 11, and viewers here are getting an odd bit of overlap with real life. On screen, Gallagher works under Captain Sandy as the boat's boatswain. Cameron, meanwhile, is home caring for their newborn from a nearby Airbnb. Gallagher and Cameron spent most of season 10 mending a messy season 9 relationship...
Last week's New Zealand episode already showed cracks. After a completed charter, Gallagher left the crew dinner following a text from Cameron: come home, the baby wouldn't settle, she needed help. He left without confirming he was on his way. A later voiceover caught Cameron sounding stressed, and angry. Then, right at the end of the episode, Gallagher arrived to the next charter late. Only just made it before departure. Captain Sandy made it clear she wanted a word about his timekeeping, and about what leadership means on that boat.
Impossible to say from outside the production how much of that is real strain and how much is clever editing. Below Deck Med has never pretended to be pure fly-on-the-wall television. But the timing fits. Rumours that Gallagher and Cameron had split had already done the rounds online, and they now line up with an incident that happened back in December, only just working its way through the courts.
It's not clear from Bravo's statement whether that's about season 11, which keeps airing regardless, or about a season 12 that might already be sitting in the edit suite. Last season ran 18 episodes. If season 11 follows anything like that pattern, Gallagher's still got a long way to go on New Zealand screens yet. Bravo has form both ways. Below Deck Med's Peter Hunziker was cut from the show entirely once his old racist social media posts came to light. Below Deck Sailing Yacht's Gary King wasn't. He stayed on despite sexual misconduct allegations against him, though he claimed at the time his screen time had quietly shrunk, in a dispute that's still tangled up in an ongoing lawsuit. If a season 12 already exists, that history might say more about what's coming than Bravo's statement does.
For now, Kiwi viewers get to watch Gallagher on their screens most weeks, filling in charter itineraries and fixing broken watermakers, while half a world away a warrant sits out on him with his name on it. Reality telly rarely lines up that neatly with reality.
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