Tanner Sterback Was So Sick During ‘Below Deck’ He Almost Threw Up Just Talking About It

By Lea Palmieri @littleleap
Published Dec. 2, 2019, 2:52 p.m. ET

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When the eye-for-an-eye strategy doesn’t quite work (we both missed) to determine who would shoot first in a late afternoon game of beer pong, Below Deck deckhand Tanner Sterback says I can start the game. It’s not just a gentlemanly move, as he offers, “Well, I am pretty thirsty.” 

We met at 3 Sheets Saloon in New York City for the drinking game and conversation, inspired by the show’s most recent charter guests and partiers who threw themselves an evening of college games aboard the boat. Neither one of us had even sunk a ball into a cup before it became clear that the 6’3” Long Island native’s life motto of Good Vibes Only is one that he sticks to in nearly every moment. 

When I asked how the Below Deck experience has been for him so far he says, “I love it. I’ve been getting so much positive feedback that I can’t complain about it at all. It’s obviously a rollercoaster ride of emotion. It all hits at once. It’s been fun, just trying not to let it go to my head. I have people that support me enough that would be like, take it easy.” 

One of those people is his grandmother, a woman he opened up about to second stew Simone Mashile on a recent episode of the Bravo series as the two bonded on the boat. When I even mention his relative, he lit up and said, “That’s my girl!” After graduating from SUNY Plattsburgh, Tanner moved out to Northern California where he lived with her in a house that’s part of her over 40 acres of land in wine country. “It was great, I had my dog with me (Tito, named after the vodka, natch) she had her dog. We became best friends. We were always close growing up but when you get to the roommate-level relationship it’s pretty great. [We] were waking up, having a coffee and a cigarette, talking about our day and everything.” 

His days included duties as a lifeguard at Francis Ford Coppola winery and coaching the lacrosse team at his cousin’s private school. But even as he was keeping busy, Tanner admitted, “You go home and the closest neighbor’s three miles away so you kinda get lonely up there. And as much as I love my grandma, she can’t keep up with me.” He confirms that she loves watching him on Below Deck and that “she’s just so proud,” even though she might not grasp the scope of it all. “She thinks it’s like a home movie,” he said with a smile. “She forgets that it’s a national TV show and she’s like, oh, it looks like he’s having so much fun!” He insists she’s very with it, especially for a grandma, and will leave sweet comments on his Instagram posts. “It’s always the cutest thing. She’s just that special person though. Everyone will talk nice about their grandma, but every person that has met her, she’s become their favorite person.” 

He’s likely had people asking about his own mother as well, who we’ve seen via a phone call so far on the show. “She’s just that regular worrying mom. I’m her baby so she’s gotta make sure I’m okay all the time. I always had to check-in, any chance I could.” He also promises he followed her advice: “No, I didn’t get anyone pregnant, and no, I wasn’t with any prostitutes.” 

“My parents were so excited I was doing the show because they’re big fans of it. I was never really watching it, to be honest, and once they found out that it was a possibility they were all for it and super supportive.” Tanner did go back and watch Season 6 before joining the boat just so he had an idea of what he was about to get himself into. 

It doesn’t seem as though the same can be said for his former fellow deckhand Abbi Murphy, who left the yacht just a few episodes ago. “I was pretty bummed she left,” Tanner said. “Everyone really was. You didn’t get to see how funny she was. She would make fun of Ash, Brian, and me all the time; this little girl ripping us apart. Her sense of humor was out of control. We were never not laughing. It just became too much for her and I don’t blame her.” And then that GVO motto kicks back in. “People are still upset about it but if you’re not happy about something, change it. Go out and do it.” 

Though if anyone tried his Good Vibes attitude, it was the return of Rhylee Gerber. “She comes in hot,” he said of his first impression of his new co-worker. “One redhead leaves, another one comes on to start the fire.” But ultimately he said of her arrival, “I was excited. It’s always exciting to work with someone new. I’ll never say anything bad about someone until I get to know them.” And then will you, I prodded? “Of course,” he said with a smile. “I’m a New Yorker.”

He’s also not afraid to admit that their first night out as a new group, “was really embarrassing. We’ve been together for two or three weeks and we have this person come on that starts cursing up a storm on this family beach while people are eating dinner.” Tanner fluctuated between enjoying his front-row seat to the argument, saying, “I don’t like drama but I love it if I’m not in it. I’ll frown upon it, but if it’s that stupid, that’s when I love it, where in my head I’m saying, I can’t believe they’re fighting about this right now.” 

Ultimately, it all came back to the fact that “I’m embarrassed and I don’t deal with that shit. There’s no end in sight, [so I went to] cool off and then Kevin joined me which was nice.” While he prefers to stay neutral in the drama, he said, “If I know that someones right I’ll back them up in a positive way like, you’re right but chill out,” which was his strategy with Kevin on the beach. Soon after Rhylee followed them to the beach where she shouted “Shut the fuck up, who the fuck are you?” at Tanner, who is seen smiling and sauntering away [GVO in action!]. “That’s honestly when I was like, now I see where we’re at. You’re one of those? Alright, we’re not really gonna talk that much.” 

I ask if she was fun or funny at all, and Tanner takes a big sip of beer and an even bigger pause. Those GVO wheels were spinning out of control in his brain trying to come up with something positive, but he surrendered, admitting, “It’s a no. I always want to say something nice. She just created a problem everywhere she went. There was always something wrong. And I never understood if it was just simple instruction or an idea, always something wrong. It was just toxic.” 

“We all tried to give her the benefit of the doubt,” he continued. “That’s who she is. Which is good for her, you can be headstrong, we’re all headstrong people. I’m from Long Island, some of the hottest heads in the country, but come on. You have to admit when you’re wrong sometimes.” 

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I ask how he thinks he’s doing representing Long Island so far, as he said at the beginning of the show he worried about coming across as a FLID, and he answered honestly, “I’m a tool but I’m not a douchebag. I’m happy to admit that. It always comes out a little bit, especially when you start drinking, the New York accent comes out and it’s like, where’s my slice of pizza?” I tell him it’s not like he’s the Bagel Boss Guy who made headlines earlier this year due to a viral video of himself having a tantrum at a bagel shop. “If you want to compare me to the Bagel Guy then I’m doing a great job,” Tanner laughed. 

It’s unavoidable to not compare him to another Sayville native, Below Deck Mediterranean’s Colin Macy-O’Toole, likely the nicest guy to ever appear on the network. Before Tanner’s season aired, he reached out to the two-season yachtie “about what to expect and he’s just been so helpful. And one of the nicest guys too. [We’ve] gotten beers a couple times and he just wants to do anything he can to help out.” Tanner also teased a potential upcoming collaboration but was quick to confirm that he does not share Colin’s rapping skills. 

The pair also hung out early in the summer this year when they crossed paths in LA while filming their respective interviews for the show. Tanner joined Colin, along with Joao Franco and Aesha Scott for a night out. “I went to their viewing party because it was their premiere,” Tanner said, but it was Aesha he connected with most that night, as she made a big revelation recently on the first episode of her podcast, Going Overboard. “We hung out, went out dancing, flirting a little bit, and one thing led to another, we woke up together and that was it. She went back to New Zealand and I went back to New York,” Tanner explained of the hookup, noting that the details she added in about him being well-endowed were “high praise.” For the record, she did run it by him first to see if he was cool with her talking about their night together, and Tanner says he “was grateful,�� adding, “It was good press, I’ll take good press.” 

He’ll also be earning himself some good press with the latest episode that finds him confessing to his fellow deckhands that he “went down on Simone.” Even though he was professing his desire to hook up with the chief stew in early episodes this season, Tanner said, “Things weren’t clicking with Kate, it felt forced and awkward but with Simone there was a nice chemistry there. We were always friendly and ourselves around each other.” Even though Abbi and then Brian de Saint Pern told him Simone might be into him, it wasn’t until she was making “more visits to my room when I was sick” that he realized she liked him. “I was kind of hesitant about it, just because I didn’t really want to hook up with anyone on the boat,” he confessed, noting he didn’t want to be the one to create conflict. Except that’s precisely what he accomplishes with his oral sex admission. “Should I have said it? No,” he said, but the drama we can expect to see is “nothing too crazy.” 

The same goes for his blurred out, naked behind which makes an appearance during the latest episode as well. “It’s a good thing I have a very tiny butt so there’s not a lot to see. My back goes straight to my hamstrings,” he said. “My friends call me Gumby. And Courtney [Skippon] calls me the wacky inflatable tube man, like at car lots. That’s how I dance.” 

He wasn’t doing a whole lot of dancing just a few episodes ago when he was diagnosed with “sweet belly,” which he says is “the Thailand stomach virus,” essentially a case of really bad food poisoning. “There was actually a point for three days where I couldn’t eat or drink anything. I tried so hard just to have a glass of water and it would come right back up within seconds.” 

Tanner recalled that the yachties got food delivered from a restaurant nearby while docked, and he opted for a cheeseburger. “First bite I was like, this is the grossest burger I’ve ever had but kept eating it, where you know somethings wrong. I’m gonna throw up thinking about it,” he said and turned away from the table with his hand over his mouth to collect himself.  

After he was able to speak and return to (albeit the slow) beer pong game at hand, he continued, “Ugh, man. It was the sickest I’ve ever been in my life.” He explained that four separate medical professionals came to the boat: a doctor, someone from the ER, and two fluid experts. “They didn’t know what was wrong with me.” And after multiple IVs, including one of antibiotics and one of “pure electrolytes to jumpstart my system” they diagnosed him with a stomach infection “I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.” Not that Mr. Good Vibes even has any of those. 

After all, he’s the kind of guy that uses “Jiminy Cricket” when he doesn’t want to curse, and who goes on Instagram to like the negative comments about himself, including one that read something along the lines of “he’s good looking but when he opens his mouth I want to change the channel.” 

“I’ll be sitting there and I’m like, nice, that’s a good one,” he says of his social media strategy. The most negative he’ll get throughout our entire chat is pointing out that he doesn’t quite agree with the way Courtney has been interacting with viewers of the show. “She’s tired of taking all that negative feedback but she’s able to talk all this shit about everyone else. I don’t like hypocrites, if you’re going to be so defensive about yourself then you can’t talk bad about other people. It’s not fair.” He said he was turned off during the first charter when she complained about walking across the hot sand. “If you’re not gonna appreciate being in Thailand and getting paid to do it… just too negative for me. I know she has a dry humor and is sarcastic, but I’m such a happy person, I like having fun as much as possible. If I were to write a book, I want every page to bring a smile to someone’s face like, that’s fun, that’s hilarious.” 

If he were to write a book about the rest of his fellow crew members, it might mention that “all four guys have a good relationship. We all still talk to this day, we’re in a group chat. Goes on every day,” and that of Ashton Pienaar he says, “He was great as a boss. He was so respectful and he worked his ass off too. That was his first bosun position. Everything got done and he led by example.” Even of his former crush Kate Chastain, he said, “After everything was done in the beginning, we became good friends. We clicked and it wasn’t awkward anymore. It became a lot of fun, we started hanging out and talking more and it made the boat so nice. Everything was gelling and so well.” 

He also enjoyed his time working with Captain Lee, saying the two “would just talk about life in general,” and that “it was always nice. We could go out with each other, he’s drinking his Grey Goose on the rocks, I’m drinking my tequila soda, it was always comfortable. I enjoyed working for him a lot because he’s straight to the point. He’s got no time for bullshit.” 

At that point in the conversation, or really, our game in front of us, Tanner observed, “It’s always funny how much better you start playing with a little buzz.” 

And Tanner promises there’s still a lot we’ll be buzzing about this season and that “there’s so much excitement coming on. The show starts to heat up and every episode is gonna be something interesting to watch.” He’s especially excited for viewers to see their trip to the elephant sanctuary, saying, “That was a huge bucket list moment, I felt like a school kid in a toy store. I’ve never been so excited as when I was at the elephant sanctuary. Wrestling with a baby elephant in the mud pit, covered in mud on my face. It really is one of the happiest moments of my life.”

Below Deck airs Monday at 9pm ET/PT on Bravo. 

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