‘Below Deck Med’ Bromance: Chef Jack Explains His Friendship With Max Salvador – ‘He Makes Me Laugh’
Chef Jack Luby from Below Deck Mediterranean wanted to clarify that deckhand Max Salvador was a bright spot for him this season, but there’s no way he’d want to work with him in the same department.
Luby and Salvador seemed to have forged a strong bond and friendship. And while Salvador could easily get a laugh out of Luby, viewers are seeing how no one is laughing at his antics on deck, especially lead deckhand Lara Du Preez.
Salvador’s attitude is also becoming a source of frustration for bosun Luka Brunton, so why did Luby get along so well with Salvador?
Chef Jack loves ‘Max to death’ but wouldn’t work with him
“I keep being asked this quite a lot. I love Max to death,” Luby told Showbiz Cheat Sheet. “But I’ll be honest. That’s probably because I didn’t work with him directly. All this stuff, I didn’t see any of this stuff. All I see as you’ll see as the show goes on, you’ll see we have quite a funny dynamic in the galley because he just makes me laugh. Like sometimes it gets long and hard in the galley and it gets very stressful and you just need to laugh.”
“And honestly, if I got another yacht job, I would just pay to have Max in the corner, just be a Max because he makes me laugh because he makes me laugh that much,” he added. “But work with him? No, I would never like to work with him. Like not a chance. But just having him in the corner being Max. It’s like therapy. He just makes me laugh so much. But all this stuff going on that I didn’t know any of this because they kept to themselves. Yeah, it was a bit different area because I’m in the middle, but I didn’t see any of that stuff.”
Chef Jack knows Max is getting a ‘bad rap’ on ‘Below Deck Med’
Luby admitted that even when Salvador offered to help in the galley, his presence was mainly there for moral support. “I like having a friend in the galley who is making me laugh,” he said. “Like he’s there doing the dishes … I don’t know if he was really doing the dishes or not, but he was there.”
“He was a presence. He was talking about doing the dishes but I don’t know if he was actually doing them,” Luby laughed. “You know, honestly, I love Max to death. He’s got a good heart. I mean, he’s got a bad rap now. But he is a good person deep down.”
Why the bad rap? Du Preez earned the lead deckhand title for the tireless amount of work she put in on deck. Meanwhile, Salvador takes his job a little slower, plus he seems disinterested in picking up the pace. Salvador also has trouble fully communicating over the radio, which can create a dangerous situation on deck.
“He’s in the wrong environment, I think,” Luby said about Salvador on deck. Plus Luby thought that Brunton was “thrown into the deep end” with his sudden appointment to bosun. But added, “He did a great job. I think he said the phrase ‘Fake it until you make it.’ And I think he was definitely faking it because on the outside he’s all calm. But on the inside, I guarantee it was a different story.”
Below Deck Mediterranean is on Monday at 9 p.m. EST on Bravo.
