NBCUniversal and Bravo facing sexual battery lawsuit from Below Deck crew members

Suarez claims she was propositioned and intimidated by King; after evading a situation in which she was afraid she would be raped, “Suarez immediately reported the terrifying incident to [production company 51 Minds Entertainment], which opened up an investigation,” the filing states. “When production spoke to King, he admitted what he had done. He was not fired, however. Instead, King was warned that he would be fired if something like that were to happen again.”

The filing continues, “Unsurprisingly, King engaged in further misconduct. Duddleston, Suarez’s then boyfriend, witnessed King untie the bikini tops of two female cast members without their consent, make lewd remarks to a female audio technician, and grab the genitals of two male camera operators. Duddleston reported these incidents, per standard operating procedure, over the crew walkie-talkie system. Rather than terminate King, 51 Minds (alongside the studio, NBC) opened an investigation into Duddleston for inappropriate use of the walkie-talkie system.” 

The suit alleges that the ex-Below Deck: Sailing Yacht crew members “are informed and believe, and based thereon allege, that 51 Minds had actually decided to terminate King after the conclusion of Season 4 but were overruled by NBC, which did not want to sacrifice its cash cow for the sake of two crew members.”

In 2023, former Housewife Bethenny Frankel brought on Freedman and Mark Geragos to investigate working conditions for reality television employees. The lawyers now represent a number of stars and others in the reality space across several NBCUniversal and Bravo series. In a letter to NBCU counsel in 2023, Freedman wrote that the company is “grappling with systemic rot for which sunlight is the first necessary remedial measure.”