Below Deck gives fans a glimpse of a world of luxury when chartering a private yacht, so it’s unsurprising that viewers have been shocked and disgusted catching glimpses of the dirty soles of crew members’ feet in certain clips.
One person commented while watching the show in 2019, “Why is everyone feet so dang on [sic?] dirty?” Someone else pointed out that a crew member had her feet on the table in the crew mess and the soles were clearly filthy. Someone else wrote, “BelowDeck why y’all always go to bed with them dirty a** feet?”
So why is everyone barefoot on Below Deck?
The main reason why Below Deck crew members and charter guests are usually seen barefoot is to avoid their shoes doing damage to the floors of the yacht. The outside of a yacht usually involves teak floors, which can be damaged by heels, while even flat-soled shoes can scuff the deck.
As for the yacht’s interior, they’re often decorated with white carpets that can easily be stained by dirty shoes, as Hannah Ferrier can attest, after spending a long time cleaning stiletto heel marks during one charter of Below Deck Mediterranean. Often, viewers can see the Below Deck guests put their shoes in a basket when they first arrive at the yacht before boarding.
The complaints from fans about some of the crew’s visible dirty soles were addressed by stewardess Courtney Skippon from Below Deck season 7. In one tweet, no longer available, Skippon shared a screengrab of her dirty feet and wrote, “Y’all are still really mad about #dirtyfeetgate, so I took the liberty of providing you all with a step by step guide. Dirty Feet for Dummies, if you will,” she wrote, according to Showbiz Cheat Sheet.
Skippon accompanied her post with a photo of the crew in their usual van on a night out as well as a snap of herself walking to the yacht with no shoes.
The furor over dirty feet was such that Bravo TV’s The Daily Dish also addressed it, reporting, “The crew members and guests are generally not permitted to wear shoes on board the yacht so as to prevent damaging the floors, which explains why they don’t always look the cleanest after a hard day’s work.”
As for the “Stud of the Sea” Captain Lee Rosbach, the original Below Deck captain has made it clear that he’s pro-boat shoes. In response to one commenter who tweeted, “Not judging by any means (really) but why does this new season of deck crew peeps have such dirty feet crawling in to bed?” Rosbach replied, “They don’t wear shoes on deck. I would rather they would, about the time one of them hits a cleat and breaks a toe they will wish they had. I know from exp. I always wear shoes on deck. Boat shoes.”