Below Deck Mediterranean’s Kyle Viljoen is backtracking on his “friendship” with castmate Natalya Scudder.
After previously stating that he and Natalya had a “brother and sister” relationship and would be open to working and hanging out with Natalya again, it appears that the bad blood between the two is still boiling.
Natalya recently shaded Kyle on a Watch What Happens Live appearance over hooking up with charter guests and said she wouldn’t work for him if he were her chief stew.
In a new interview, Kyle is revealing that Natalya knows “nothing” about him or his life, and he has no “regrets” about how his relationship with Natalya turned out as it was all “one-sided.”
“I have no regrets with the whole Natalya situation,” Kyle told Showbiz CheatSheet. “I feel like I was open with her from the get go. She never once asked me about my life. Not how old I am, where I’m from. Nothing the entire time.”
Kyle insists that he came into the season with an open mind even though he had heard about “previous situations” others had with Natalya, but it just didn’t work out.
“I’ve heard about her previous relationship situations that she came with. I was open to listening and being there for her because that’s what friends do. We are not only work colleagues, but friends.”
But friends, they are not.
“She knows nothing about me,” the Below Deck Med star explained. “And now I’m realizing after the fact from like, how am I calling you a friend if you’re not giving me friend vibes?”
Much of the contention between the two stemmed from Kyle and chief stew Natasha Webb developing a clique excluding Natalya and laying most of the workload on her. Kyle disagreed, alleging that the trio is “on the same level.”
“Natalya never, ever made it verbally, physically, emotionally evident that she wanted to be chief stew. Even throughout the season, we were never like, ‘We can do a better job [than Natasha Webb].’ So, it was never me saying that Natalya is coming for Natasha because of the hierarchy,” he said. “I do agree, me and her are very strong together. Natasha and Natayla, we’re on the same level.”
Kyle continued, asserting that the problem with the “Natalya situation” was that he believed she felt her work ethic was not being valued, but it wasn’t his problem to deal with.
“So, the Natalya situation was like she was not being heard, she was not being seen,” he said. “And that was all stemming from the chief stew aspect of things. Like, there’s only so much I can do within my position and my pay grade and my title. I can’t make changes for the chief stew. That’s not my role and responsibilities.”
All drama aside, Kyle insists that he would work with all his castmates again, including Natalya, but she would need to work on herself and take some responsibility for the way their relationship turned out.
“The thing I hold onto is I needed you to acknowledge that you caused hurt on this boat too,” Kyle explained. “And the way you spoke to [bosun] Storm [Smith]. The way you spoke to Jason [Gaskell]. It was brought up multiple times. The way you spoke to [Chef] Dave [White], Natasha, and then you tried with me and that’s why I cut you off, because it’s like it’s gone on too long. That was my issue. But I’d work with every single one of them again in hopes that all of us have evolved and have become different in the best ways.”