Andy Cohen has been on a bit of an apology tour this week. Public opinion was not kind to Andy following his appearance hosting theBelow Deck reunion episodes and he’s been using his radio show as a platform to backpedal, explain, and of course, apologize.
After a particularly bitter and vicious season, fans were curious as to how the cast would react to each other at the reunion. Certainly Andy, as host, was responsible for setting the tone and remaining neutral throughout. But general public opinion found Andy tone-deaf to the deeper issue of misogyny within the crew. Also, that he let Ashton Pienaar off way too easy.
Ensconced within the safety of yes people, Andy answered fan questions on his radio show Andy Cohen Live. He presented general thoughts about the cast saying, “everyone kinda behave liked assholes at one point or another, and the point of the reunion is for both sides to say what they have to say.”
But certainly Ashton had more to answer for than just general bad behavior. His interactions with Chief Stew Kate Chastain and deck hand Rhylee Gerber are notorious now. Andy agreed, “so I just want to say, do I think the guys behaved horribly? Yes of course. You can’t kiss someone who doesn’t want to be kissed or talk about slapping someone with your dick.”
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However, Andy did find Ashton’s apology genuine. “Typically what you look for at a reunion is some sort of apology or moving forward,” Andy explained, “so after this guy sits there and apologizes for four minutes with tears in his eyes, yeah I didn’t beat him with a club after that as I think people would have liked for me to do.”
Maybe it was the waterworks that softened Andy’s opinion of Ashton. He also hints at provocation from Rhylee saying, “but if you look at Rhylee’s behavior and say that she also didn’t occasionally behave like an asshole too, then I don’t know what to tell you.”
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Andy also explained the difficulties of yacht life and that it can exacerbate issues. He opined, “it is totally unusual, it’s out of the norm, it bring about horrible behavior. There is no HR person on the boat.”
“You all feel that I failed you, I’m sorry for that. I am trying to get to a place where you move forward, and people kind of own their behavior. That is my goal, to get people to own their behavior. For me, if I sit there and I look at Ashton with tears in his eyes apologizing, do I think he’s at least making an attempt to own his behavior? It’s seems like it. I don’t know what to tell you,” Andy said of his role as host.
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But Andy maintains that his intention was to be, “tough enough on the guys.” Perhaps his judgement wasn’t entirely clear though Andy mentioned getting confirmation from just the right demographic of the population. Andy said, “I was on painkillers. I was in a lot of pain. We shot for over two hours. And I kept saying to the control room, full of women by the way, ‘hey you guys, am I being tough enough on the guys?’”
“Everyone had things to answer to, and I’m sorry if you felt that I was imbalanced in my, you know, holding people to the fire,” Andy concluded.
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TELL US- WAS ANDY ‘TOUGH ENOUGH ON THE GUYS’? DID EACH MEMBER OF THE CREW HAVE BAD MOMENTS? WAS ASHTON’S APOLOGY GENUINE?
[Photo Credit: Karolina Wojtasik/Bravo]