Below Deck‘s Captain Lee Rosbach offered an update on where he stands with fellow Bravo star and longtime friend Carl Radke.
During an exclusive interview with Us Weekly while promoting Oxygen’s Deadly Waters, Lee, 74, revealed whether he has spoken to Carl, 39, recently, saying, “No, I haven’t. He’s been pretty busy.”
Lee has, however, been keeping up with Carl’s drama on Bravo’s Summer House.
“There’s a couple of [Bravo shows] that I have [kept watching]. I think Summer House because I know Carl and Lindsay [Hubbard] — it is just like, wow,” Lee said about Carl and Lindsay’s split, which viewers get a glimpse of during season 8 of Summer House. “I didn’t see that one coming.”
After previously being asked to officiate Carl and Lindsay’s wedding, Lee said watching their ups and downs on screen has been “uncomfortable” for him. (Lee and Carl originally became friends after losing loved ones to addiction.)
“It is difficult to watch. You kind of see what’s coming because you know the ending. Then to watch it play out, it makes me antsy,” he noted. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like a train wreck. I just can’t look away.”
Summer House viewers watched Carl and Lindsay, 37, get engaged in season 7 after one year of dating. They were expected to tie the knot in November 2023 before news broke that Carl ended their engagement three months before their nuptials.
Lee publicly showed his support for both Carl and Lindsay in the aftermath of the shocking breakup. The Below Deck alum even offered Carl a platform to break his silence on his broken engagement. Us released an exclusive sneak peek in November of the planned tell-all on Lee’s “Salty With Captain Lee” podcast one day before the episode was scheduled to go live.
In the two separate clips, Carl explained why he didn’t regret ending his engagement to Lindsay. The episode never aired after Lee said Carl asked to scrap the release at the last minute.
“We did record an interview with Carl Radke. I think the fans heard because I’ve had some people questioning me about, ‘OK, we heard the tease. Where is it?'” Lee said in a November 2023 episode of his podcast. “I’m sorry to inform you that it will not be aired and that was not my call.”
Lee made it clear that he didn’t have all the answers about the decision. “If you would like to find out why, I guess you could ask Carl Radke,” he added. “We did do it. We did record it, but it will not be played. So I apologize to all of you who thought you were going to be hearing it. That was my intention but things just didn’t work out.”
According to Lee, the episode was pulled at the very last moment. “That’s why we didn’t have a show last week. We were ready to air and the plug got pulled. But not by us. Make of that what you will,” he concluded.
Carl, for his part, hasn’t publicly addressed the episode or where his friendship with Lee stands. Instead, Carl has been focused on his job at Summer House costar Kyle Cooke‘s company Loverboy and on starting fresh after his broken engagement.
Lee has also kept busy by joining Oxygen’s Deadly Waters after a 10-year stint on Below Deck.
“For one, it’s got something to do with water. So usually if it’s got something to do with water, I’m in. I [also] like crime shows. I’ve been watching Law & Order and all of the whodunits for a million years,” Lee told Us about what inspired him to board the project. “I’m that guy that sits there and thinks he’s got it all figured out and then realizes that he wasn’t anywhere close to what really happened.”
Lee specifically highlighted the true crime aspect of the series.
“There’s something about when you’re dealing with things that actually have happened and people’s lives have actually been lost and other people’s lives are affected. There’s something about that that adds a new twist to it that makes it all the more real,” he explained. “You’re not dealing with Sam Waterston and the rest of the cast of Law & Order. For our show, once we close out that episode, those people aren’t ever coming back. It adds a realism to it that you can’t get just by writing it. It has to be experienced and lived.”
Deadly Waters With Captain Lee premieres on Oxygen Saturday, June 1, at 9 p.m. ET and episodes will be available to stream on Peacock the next day.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
