Chef Anthony Iracane was going through a lot at the time he was fired from Below Deck in Season 11.
Iracane, who returned to the reality series for Season 12, appeared on Monday night’s (June 16) episode of Watch What Happens Live, where he shocked Andy Cohen by revealing one of the reasons for his poor performance the prior charter season.
“I wouldn’t show a lot of emotion. Everybody knows what happened. I [got] divorced. My ex-wife left me for my uncle, so that’s kind of a crazy thing. My dad passed. I went through a lot,” he explained, before Cohen chimed in, “Hold on, please … Your ex-wife left you for your uncle?”
Iracane confirmed as much, telling Cohen that it happened six months before he joined his first season on Below Deck. He explained that his ex-wife and his uncle began their relationship when she was working as a chief stew on a boat he was captaining.
“Are they still together?” Cohen wondered, to which Iracane replied, “Yeah. They want to make a family. So it’s kind of cool. It’s like, who am I? Am I their uncle now?”
According to the chef, his uncle never apologized for stealing his wife and they are “absolutely not” in contact anymore. “I mean, honestly, it was for the best,” Iracane added.
Given the state of his love life and the fact that his father had recently passed away, Iracane could understand why Captain Kerry Titheradge fired him 12 episodes into the season.
“I jumped on Below Deck with all of this in my mind,” he said.
Iracane was let go last season for his poor attention to detail and lackluster food quality.
“I think you’re an incredible chef. Your food is absolutely amazing. But, you’re starting to kind of nosedive,” Titheradge told him at the time, per BravoTV. “This is not the right environment for you, mate. You’re not flourishing here. If I keep you here any longer, I’m going to set you up for disaster. I’m doing you a favor.”
Watch What Happens Live airs Sunday through Thursday at 10 p.m. ET on Bravo. New episodes are available to stream the next day on Peacock.