'Below Deck: Galley Talk' and 'The Traitors' star Kate Chastain reflects on pregnancy and motherhood with ET.
Kate Chastain is soaking in the home stretch of her first pregnancy.
"I have 82 days until I can have a martini, but who's counting?" the Below Deck alum cracks to ET over video chat. "You know, I've been very lucky -- easiest pregnancy ever, from what I've heard! I've not been sick. I've only craved donuts, so as eager as I am to be able to like have a drink again, and have my body back, it does occur to me that I’ll also have a baby when that happens. So, we're excited, but I’m not really in a rush. We're happy with the amount of time that's left."
The 40-year-old reality star announced her exciting news late last year, just as she was set to do press for Peacock's The Traitors. It's a secret she'd been sitting on for months.
"The hardest thing was, you're really not supposed to share until you're at week 12 and BravoCon was week 11 and a half," she recalls of the October fan event. "So, here I am, the biggest weekend, partying, drinks -- everybody in the Bravo universe, 'Come out, have drinks with us!' I must have told at least 43 people I was on antibiotics, and I'm such a bad liar that I just started locking myself in my hotel room, because everybody was there having a good time, and I was pretty sure people were on to me because, Kate Chastain, you're not having a drink with us? Are you [OK]?"
Kate says thankfully "nobody called me out," but she did wind up letting her under-wraps info slip.
"I was hosting on the BravoTV.com stage, and the only time I've got sick this whole pregnancy," she shares. "I was talking to Luke [Gulbranson] from Summer House in a green room, and he's being lovely. He's telling me about his maple syrup. I'm like, 'That's so interesting...' and I start feeling like, whoa! And I had to take off running down a back alley into a janitor's closet, and somebody from Bravo was like, 'Do you need a medic? You want that?' And I was like, 'No! I’m pregnant! And no one knows!'"
The Bravo representative didn't repeat Kate's news, so she was able to break it on her own terms, something she's applied to every aspect of the pregnancy. While she's made it clear this is a solo journey, she's yet to explain how it came to be -- and won't be any time soon.
"I wasn't planning it, but I was hoping for it," she shares. "It is a happy miracle, and I would love to share every detail with how it happened and everything, but I think I’m gonna be a good mom because I’m realizing, like, this is not just my information. Like, my unborn child, one day, will have access to the internet and we'll be able to Google, and I just feel like it's not just my information to share."
Kate also knows if she's having a boy or a girl, but is keeping that private for now. She does reveal that she was "relieved" when she learned the sex of her child.
"Along this journey, I’m holding onto things to keep it special, because I've never done this before," she says. "I’m airing on the side of caution."
She expects to share more once the child is here, though; she's not going to be a mom who hides her kid's face on social media.
"I don't really see the point in that," she admits. "I mean, I respect people's privacy, but I’m going to be obsessed with this baby, obviously, and if I put that limitation on myself to be careful, it wouldn't last. I'm just gonna be like, 'Look how cute! Look how cute my baby is!'"
"I just I think it's gonna be so fun," she gushes. "I don't mean to keep comparing it to my dog, but it's my only point of reference, and my mom said to me, 'Well, think about how much you love your dog. Now, imagine if your dog could talk back to you!'"
A couple Below Deck family members were clued into the journey early, too. Kate claims she had to tell chef Ben Robinson, because they live in the same building and it would become obvious, quickly. The other person who got a heads-up was Captain Lee Rosbach.
"I called him -- and he was on vacation or something -- I was like, 'Call me tomorrow when you're not around people...' trying to be all casual, and he immediately knew something," she recalls. "He's like, 'Are you OK?!' And I was like, 'I'm fine, just call me tomorrow when you're alone...' and him and [his wife] Mary Anne are, of course, thrilled."
Kate expects Lee and Mary Anne to function sort of like grandparents to her little one "like it or not."
"Captain Lee, the only thing he said is, 'I don't do diapers,' but I was like, babysitting is still in?!" she jokes. There will be plenty of time to bond, seeing as ET learned Lee will be sitting out of filming season 11 of Below Deck.
While Lee will likely spoil Kate's bundle of joy, she promises to be "a strict mom."
"They might not love me the whole time, but they're going to give me a great speech at the wedding," she says. "I believe in manners. I believe, you know, there's a thing called 'gentle parenting.' Like, 'No, we don't punch mommy...' No, it's gonna be, 'Go to your room and learn how to act.'"
Kate's decade-plus of training as a chief stewardess on yachts will come in handy, though she has no plans to let her kid watch her time on reality TV.
"That feels so far away," she offers. "I have kind of wondered like, will my child ever know about my reality TV past? But I feel like that's so far away. That's so in the future, like, will TV even be like a thing on spaceships? I don't know what media is going to be like that far, when it's age appropriate for my child to watch it."
In the meantime, she'll keep making it. Kate can currently be seen on Below Deck: Galley Talk, recapping and reacting to must-see moments from season 10 of Below Deck, including Captain Sandy Yawn stepping in for Captain Lee mid-season after a health emergency sidelined the longtime star.
"I know before anybody that he was coming home," Kate notes. "So, going into this, I've already lived it, but I know it's hard for him to watch, because there's a saying in yachting and boating: 'Every good captain goes down with the ship,' so I think it's so hard for him to walk away from a boat job. I don't think he's ever had to do that before."
She's also hot off of Peacock's The Traitors, where she bonded with fellow Bravo-lebrity Brandi Glanville. The two want to do a road-trip show together as a follow-up to their time in Scotland filming the competition series (that is, if Brandi should be allowed back on NBCUniversal airwaves after reportedly causing issues on the just-wrapped fourth season of Peacock's The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip).
"There definitely were conversations about it, but then I went that pregnant, so I mean, we could put a baby in there!" Kate rattles off. "I feel like we would be like a very funny, Thelma and Louise meets Romy and Michele, I mean, she's one of the funniest people I've ever met. ... and I've always wanted to do a road trip, anyways in an RV. So, you know, once that baby is ready for a road trip, maybe?"
The Florida-based star would also be down to join The Real Housewives of Miami but wants to jump a tax bracket (or two) first.
"I just feel like I’m not rich enough yet," she says. "We are working on it."
Until then, Kate has plenty to keep her occupied -- including filming a reunion for The Traitors this Friday. ET surprised her with a message from on-screen foe Rachel Reilly, of Big Brother fame, ahead of the taping.
"God bless her," Kate deadpans after watching. "She's a strong personality. I actually really like Rachel outside of the castle, I really really do. I respect so much how she is all-in, and I think that's where we were very different."
"She was like, 'Can we do more?' I'm like, 'Can we do less?'" Kate continues. "But I think she's hilarious, and I really respect how all-in she is. She goes for it, go big or go home. Regarding the reunion, I'm really hoping there's an entire segment package of where they all play how many times I got voted. I hope that we're counting up the votes. I would like to know. Like, 'In total, Kate, you received 375 of the 400 votes over the course of the show...' and I would like apologies. I'm not mad, but I would like some apologies."
Kate says she'd most like an apology from Quentin Jiles, one of the "civilians" who played alongside the reality TV alumni, but it's all in good fun.
"We were horrible at that game and, frankly, I could tell pretty early in the show that we were all horrible at the game," she says. "But it was so much fun. You know, my love language is trauma bonding, so I’m very close with the people I spent time with in the castle."
That includes the show's winner, Cirie Fields, who used some of her prize money on gifts for Kate's kiddo.
"She sent me beautiful, beautiful outfits for my child already, Ralph Lauren, so many boxes," Kate confesses. "I was opening them, and taking videos -- I even put one of my dog and was like, 'You look how cute!' And then I’m realizing, like, now what do I do with the baby clothes? That's when it hit me. Like, oh, you're keeping the baby clothes! Because you're having a baby! So it's not just like, 'Look how cute!' I'm starting to collect baby items, and it's making it very real."
All episodes of The Traitors are now streaming on Peacock, with the reunion set to premiere later this year. To see more from Kate, tune into Below Deck: Galley Talk, airing Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.
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