Jill Zarin is pulling back the curtain of her time on Below Deck.
Jill’s two-day charter aboard the St. David boat aired across two episodes on Bravo in April. During her stay, Jill vocalized some of her concerns to the crew — including the food being cold and service taking a long time.
"I'm good with everything I did," she exclusively told Us Weekly. "[However], I don't agree with how they reacted to why I said what I said on the show. So I kind of came back and gave my point of view because I don't get an interview on the show. I don't get a confessional."
After watching the less-than-thrilled crew talk about her on the show, Jill felt that the situation was "one-sided" without her perspective being taken into account.
"I felt it necessary to set the record straight and there's more things to set the record straight on, but there's only so many hours in a day," she joked. "I didn't have any downsides to filming. I actually enjoyed it, I had a great time. I think that I learned things when I was on the boat."
Jill acknowledged the "awful things" she saw the Below Deck cast say about her on screen, but her frustration also came from what didn't end up airing.
"There's a couple of scenes that you miss that they cut out of the show," she noted to Us. "There's only 50 minutes in a show and they're going to focus on the drama."
Below Deck season 11 airs on Bravo Mondays at 9 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Peaco*ck. Keep scrolling for the biggest revelations from Jill's tell-all with Us — including what Below Deck fans didn't catch on the show:
How Much Money Jill Zarin Spent on the Trip
During her interview with Us, Jill specifically called out stew Barbie Pascual's dig about her "freeloading" on the trip. (Barbie has since issued an apology to Jill about the comments she made in confessionals.)
"I wasn't a freeloader because I contributed to the tip. I paid for my airfare and I paid for my hotel. So I spent $6,000 to fly to Grenada for two nights. That's a lot of work for me to go somewhere for two nights and a lot of money. I could do a lot of things for $6,000," Jill explained. "So I was hardly a freeloader. And my friends who are beyond generous didn't deserve to have any of their guests treated disrespectfully by the crew after spending $65,000."
Jill also shut down speculation that guests get a discount on the charter if they film for the show, adding, "When they look at each other, when we gave a $20,000 tip, as if we were cheap is insulting because the week before they got a $30,000 tip. Do you know why? Because it was a three-night trip. We were on a two-night trip. So they gave 10,000 a night. We matched it. We gave 10,000 a night. That was very generous."
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The Gift Jill Zarin Received From Captain Kerry
Viewers missed out on several major moments including Jill receiving a "three-star lapel" from Captain Kerry.
"I was wearing pajamas and he put them on my pajamas because he wanted to make me an honorary captain because he was very impressed with my ability. [This was based on me] knowing a lot about boats and boating and docking and everything. Because I'm a licensed captain," she explained to Us. "I had a 50-foot Sea Ray for many years. Then we went up to 72-foot San Lorenzo and we had a captain and a chef. I've chartered boats around the world and I have friends who have big yachts. So I can't speak for other people who've been on the boats, but I can only represent myself."
Initial Promise of Snacks
During Jill's stay on St. David, she brought up how the boat didn't have snacks readily available for the guests. Jill has since clarified that she was going off of the information she was originally provided from chief steward Fraser Olender.
"I have a video that I took when we got on board and we were sitting at the dining room table and he went over the lay of the land for the next two days. He said there will be snacks. I didn't ask. It wasn't prompted," Jill said about the footage, which Us has seen and verified. "He said, 'There'll be snacks and food everywhere the entire time. You won't need anything.' So imagine when we got the lunch problem, we were starving."
Jill confirmed that their issues with the dishes that were being prepared — and the speed at which they arrived — continued throughout their time on the megayacht.
"We were starving. We were absolutely starving. We hadn't eaten lunch or dinner and there was no snacks. I had put on my preference sheet that I'd like to have fruit out all the time. A very common thing [is] fruit, cheese and crackers," she continued. "Those are the kinds of things you usually see. The bar nuts and things like that. There was nothing and I was hungry and maybe a little cranky because I was so hungry."
Jill Zarin's Contact With Fraser Olender Since the Show
"After I got off the boat, I DMed Fraser. I said, 'Thank you so much for the most amazing time. We had the best time ever. Love to stay in touch,'" she recalled. "'However, I want to give you a list of things that were wrong, but I didn't want to say it and make you guys look bad. And here's the list.'"
Jill told Fraser about issues such as the TV being broken, to which he responded, "He wrote back, 'I'll write it down. Thank you so much. Let's stay in touch. Love to see you again.' Fraser and I, and we kept in touch for a year."
Their friendship has since fizzled out after Jill asked Fraser to defend her from fan scrutiny — and he didn't.
"[Fraser] even apologized and said, 'I feel bad about the bad pressure you're getting. You don't deserve it. You're a nice lady. You didn't do anything wrong,'" Jill told Us. "So I asked him if he would come out and say something and he didn't."
She added: "I'm done. He doesn't want to listen. I tried to reach out with him on Instagram. He just said, 'I feel bad that you are getting a lot of hate and you don't deserve it.' And I said, 'Well, can you say something?' And he ignored it."
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The Extra Focus on Her
Jill believes that the edit suggests that she was the only one making comments on the boat.
"Everybody in my group had tape on their mouth. Nobody talked. It was like a movie," she joked. "They weren't allowed to talk. I was the only one allowed to talk to them. I mean, isn't that ridiculous? … Do you think no one talked? But they took everybody out. There was nobody on the boat but me. I was the only one talking. It's ridiculous."
Jill was also not happy with how their issues were presented on screen. She maintained that the food was late, which is why her group was so frustrated.
"I'm not mad at anybody but I'm disappointed that the fans think that I was out of line because I wasn't whining. I wasn't complaining," she continued. "There was plenty to complain about. I didn't complain about it. Now that you want to know my complaints, I've got more. But I didn't at the time."
Wrong Approach
Looking back at the experience, Jill told Us that the cast was too serious instead of just having fun with her around.
"I think they handled the episode wrong. I think having a Housewife on was fun," the Real Housewives of New York City alum shared. "They should have let me be me, which I was. And they should have laughed with me. They should have made fun of me in a loving way. Not in a mean way."
Jill continued: "People who don't know me and watch the show and wanted to hate on me, that's fine. But anybody who knows me or really follows me on Instagram, it didn't make sense. They're watching me and then they're seeing the comments [from the crew] and it doesn't make sense."
With reporting by Johnni Macke
