Below Deck‘s Captain Lee Rosbach is recovering in a hospital bed after undergoing spinal surgery days ago for a bad back.
The OG captain of the Bravo hit show announced the news on Wednesday, posting on Twitter.
“Nicki, you should know all the facts before you spout off, but I guess facts don’t mean that much to you, and what’s worse is claiming you know when you don’t,” Captain Lee wrote in response to a troll on Twitter attacking him.
“Just a FYI I have been in a hospital bed all week recovering from a serious spinal surgery. Do I owe you an explanation?”
The semi-anonymous Twitter account was calling out Captain Lee for live-tweet responding to fans during Monday’s Below Deck season 9 show, but not addressing the scandal of Chief Stew Heather Chase saying a racist slur in front Black deckhand Rayna Lindsey.
Captain Lee usually writes a blog post on the latest episode that airs, but there isn’t a post up yet for the controversial episode 8, “Compliments of Captain Lee’s Travel Agency”.
Rosbach responded to another fan asking why he was in the hospital and he revealed it was due to “severe spinal stenosis“. Spinal stenosis is when a portion of the spinal canal narrows and can be extremely painful due to bunching of the nerves, among other symptoms: loss of sexual performance, difficulty walking properly, burning pain, loss of bladder and bowel control, and sciatica.
Sitting on the captain’s chair for decades probably hasn’t been the best for Rosbach’s back.
This isn’t the first health problems the 71-year-old Captain Lee has run into recently. Another captain had to start the charter season on the My Seanna in Below Deck season 9 because Rosbach was in the hospital at the time. He disclosed to First Officer Eddie Lucas he has a heart condition.
“I have a condition that I was born with called AFib, and it’s when your heart will just randomly go into an irregular heartbeat,” said Captain Lee on Below Deck.
“They hospitalized me, and they actually burn off parts of your heart that are trouble spots.”
Captain Lee’s explanation for why he didn’t address the n-word controversy didn’t satisfy the angry Twitter user though.
Other Below Deck fans wished the beloved Captain Lee a speedy recovery on Twitter and Reddit.
