The reality TV star on the run: Below Deck's Nathan Gallagher was a fan favourite. But he now faces charges for choking his girlfriend and and assault... and is wanted in TWO countries

It was the finale of Season 11 of Below Deck Mediterranean - and tensions that had been bubbling away for weeks during filming had come to a head.

The 170ft Akira One would normally glide serenely through the white-capped waves, carrying her 12 ultra-wealthy guests paying £150,000 per week. But as she docked for the final time at the end of the summer in 2025, a rather more tempestuous scene was playing out on the lower deck.

Two stars of the popular Bravo TV show, which follows the lives and loves of crew members on luxury yachts, were engaged in a heated quarrel.

Nathan Gallagher and his long-term rival Joe Bradley were going at each other hard. ‘Do not disrespect my family. Do not disrespect my girlfriend,’ Gallagher warned Bradley, waving an empty plastic water bottle in his direction, in a scene that aired last month.

‘Or what? Are you going to f***ing hit me?’ Bradley replied.

‘Do not tempt me...’ was Gallagher’s sinister response.

Gallagher, 28, might well have felt relief when he disembarked the Akira One for an emotional reunion with his girlfriend Gael Cameron, a former crewmate he met on the show back in Season 9, and their baby son Kayden.

However, in the months since he has plunged Below Deck into a series of mounting crises.

‘I know what’s important,’ the Irishman said in his final on-screen moments. ‘I don’t know what my next move is, but I want to focus on my family. It’s that simple.’

Little did Gallagher know when filming those clips that by the time the episode aired he would be a man on the run - wanted in two countries for domestic abuse and assault. Not only that, but the reality star and bosun (responsible for managing the crew) would have devastated the family he once claimed to cherish - and in a further bizarre twist be dogged by accusations of having a ‘secret daughter’.

His spectacular fall from grace began last Christmas, a few months after leaving Akira One, when Gallagher, six-month-old Kayden and Gael had settled in Sydney, moving into a modern apartment in the Melrose Park suburb.

As Boxing Day drew to a close, an argument broke out between the couple, who had been in an on-off relationship for almost three years.

By the early hours of the morning of December 27, 2025, police officers had been called: Gallagher had allegedly tried to suffocate Ms Cameron.

As baby Kayden lay next to her on the bed, Gallagher straddled Gael to stop her from breaking free. When she tried to cry out in fear and pain, he stopped the mother of his child so she could not make any noise.

Gallagher was arrested and taken into custody, where he was charged with ‘assault occasioning actual bodily harm, intentionally choking a person without consent and common assault’.

He was bailed on December 28, with strict instructions not to approach Gael, 30, as well as any other potential witnesses.

It had been a tumultuous few weeks for the tattooed and bearded star. Remarkably, he had been hailed as one of the ‘heroes’ of the Bondi Beach terror attack on December 14, which saw 15 people shot dead by Islamist gunmen.

Gallagher, originally from Burtonport, County Donegal, had been on his boat when he heard gunshots on the beach. He quickly loaded a group of scared beach-goers aboard and headed out into the sea to escape the carnage.

His mother, Noreen, was one of the first to praise his actions, saying of her son: ‘You thought about people’s safety before your own.’

And yet just 12 days later, this same ‘hero’, was facing court, accused of domestic abuse against Gael for his actions on Boxing Day.

At that point, news of Gallagher’s arrest had not yet broken and would indeed be kept under wraps for months. It was only in August this year - a month before Gallagher was due to appear in court - that the details of the incident were made public after Rolling Stone magazine obtained a police memo confirming the star’s arrest.

Gallagher, who by then had stopped posting on social media and had allegedly unfollowed all of his fellow cast members, initially remained silent about his arrest.

Just five days before he was due in court on September 1, however, he admitted that while he had ‘made mistakes’ he had ‘evidence’ that offered a different version of events.

‘I am not claiming I was perfect. I wasn’t,’ he told Rolling Stone. ‘I made mistakes, and I will take responsibility for my own actions. But I will not accept being portrayed solely through one person’s account of a relationship when there is another side and evidence relating to it.

‘My biggest concern is my son. One day he will be old enough to see everything that has been said about his parents, and I don’t want his childhood turned into a public battle.

‘My priority is being recognised as his father, establishing a relationship with him and ultimately finding a way for [Gael and I] to move forward and co-parent peacefully.’

Gallagher, who soon after deleted his social media accounts, claimed that he was ‘not looking for revenge’ but that he did not ‘believe the public [had] heard the full story.’

The sailor had been expected to turn up to his hearing at a New South Wales courtroom last month to give his ‘evidence’, but in another sensational twist, he failed to do so.

Instead, Judge Janine Lacy convicted Gallagher in absentia of three offences of assault, including actual bodily harm, common assault and intentionally choking a person without consent. In court, Gallagher’s whereabouts were described as being ‘currently offshore’, leading the judge to issue a warrant for his arrest.

Australian immigration data later confirmed he had fled the country, with police circulating Gallagher’s mugshot on social media. Members of the public were ‘urged not to approach him’ and to call the emergency services immediately if they saw him.

It was only then that it emerged Gallagher, was not only wanted in Australia but was also subject to a warrant for his arrest in his home county of Donegal in Ireland.

The warrant had been issued on April 8, 2025 after he also failed to appear at Dungloe District Court. He had been charged with assaulting another man and causing him harm at Main Street, Dungloe, on August 7, 2022. He appears to have applied to be on Below Deck some time later.

Within days of these revelations, the TV network Bravo confirmed that he had been axed from Below Deck Mediterranean, with a spokesman saying: ‘Bravo does not plan on working with Nathan in the future.’

The current season of the show, which aired from June until this week, however, continued to be aired with scenes containing Gallagher.

Following Bravo’s statement, Gael also broke her silence, thanking fans for their ‘support’ on Instagram, before adding: ‘It’s been a tough season, but I have been using the past few months to quietly heal and rebuild for little man and myself.’

For the next month, Gallagher’s location continued to remain unknown - and he was certainly not thought to be in Sydney.

Yet earlier this week, when his co-star Joe Bradley posted a series of photographs to mark the end of the latest season of Below Deck, more questions arose concerning Gallagher’s whereabouts.

In the post, Bradley viciously referred to Gallagher as a ‘maggot man’ and said he showed ‘muppet behaviour’. This prompted an angry response in the comments from an account apparently run by Gallagher’s mother, Noreen.

The woman called Mr Bradley ‘a p***k’ before adding ‘you know he’s in Sydney’. These comments, as well as the account, were later deleted when fans questioned why his mother was allegedly hiding his location from authorities.

It was only then, in another dramatic twist, that a woman also weighed in underneath the Instagram post, claiming that Gallagher was the father of her seven-year-old daughter - a child he has never mentioned before or acknowledged publicly.

Responding to his mother’s allegations, she wrote: ‘I heard Noreen Gallagher is amongst the comments (she has me blocked). Can someone let her know her seven-year-old granddaughter is doing well over here.

‘The man she is defending never stepped up because he is and always will be a maggot man.’

The woman went on to add that she did not ‘want or need anything’ from Gallagher but wanted it known that he had ‘abandoned’ his daughter.

Last night, New South Wales Police told the Daily Mail the force believes Gallagher is still outside Australia - with no indication that he is in Sydney, as his mother suggested.

During the Below Deck season finale, Gallagher had said: ‘If there is one thing I know about me it is that I can go through so much s*** but I will always come out the other side.’

Where the ‘other side’ is for Gallagher currently remains a mystery, but if, and when, he does choose to return to Australia, he will undoubtedly be met with the full force of the law.

Whether the world of Below Deck has been holed below the waterline remains to be seen.