Captain Lee Reveals He Has a Medical Condition Affecting ‘Below Deck’

NBCUMV Captain Lee returns for "Below Deck" season 8 with a few bumps in the road.

Fan favorite, Captain Lee Rosbach has revealed a medical condition that has affected the filming of the upcoming season of Bravo’s “Below Deck”

When the “Below Deck” season 9 trailer dropped, it was clear something was happening to Rosbach and he’d have to miss part of the season. Now, Rosbach is speaking to E! News ahead of the season to reveal some of the details surrounding his mysterious condition.

“I am much better,” he told E! News. “The timing was mainly screwed up. Because we have such a tight shooting schedule, it was imperative that the guests’ charters start and end on time so it didn’t have a domino effect and impact every charter after that.”

Rosbach also said that the COVID-19 bubble for filming played a part in his extended leave and “When I finally got on board, I was the happiest guy in the world.”

The condition that Rosbach suffers from is unclear from the trailer but he confirmed it was not COVID-19 related, per E! News.

“There was just a lot of different things this year, because of the circumstances in which we had to film,” Rosbach told the outlet. “A lot of things that we’re used to doing, we couldn’t do because we had to stay within the confines of our bubble because of COVID, so we had to improvise in some situations, which is not a bad thing. Sometimes you can improvise and get extremely creative, which I like to think we’re pretty good at.”


“Below Deck” Season 9 Trailer Features Blood, Fights, and All the Drama

Bravo dropped the season 9 trailer in August and we see that First Officer Eddie Lucas and Chef Rachel Hargrove are back, but a new captain has stepped into Rosbach’s shoes.

Captain Sean Meagher will act as the My Sienna captain while Rosbach is off the ship, which, according to the teaser looks to be a significant amount of time.

But who is Meagher?

Unfortunately, there’s still a lot unknown about the man whole will be at the helm of My Sienna this season. According to the boat charter index, we can glean a few facts about him. At 18 he was the youngest captain of Hyline Cruises and has undertaken three historic journeys throughout his long career. In his free time, Meagher likes to take “adventures and photograph wildlife” and also teaches the dangers of plastic in the ocean.


Captain Lee Had a Medical Emergency Ahead of season 8

Before “Below Deck” season 8 even began, Lee was already injured.

When the crew began arriving at the ship and Rosbach was nowhere to be seen, Lucas called him and learned he’d fallen in the shower and potentially seriously injured himself. We see all of this unfold in episode 1 of season 8.

“I was getting out of the shower, and I don’t know why they gave me this little postage stamp of a bathmat to step onto when I get out of the shower,” Rosbach told the Daily Dish on November 4. “And the door doesn’t open out, it opens in. So you have to kind of standoff to the side in order to get out of the shower, and then the sink’s right here on your right. I should have put a towel down or something because it’s marble floors, and marble on water gets really slippery. And I just slipped and fell into the sink.”

Rosbach admitted that the doctors had wanted him on bed rest but he went back to work anyway, the outlet reports.

Season 9 of “Below Deck” premieres on October 25 on Bravo.

READ NEXT: Did Captain Lee Quit Below Deck?