What Ever Happened to Samantha Orme?
The steward from #BelowDeck's first season left professional yachting and moved to California.
Looking back at our shows, we often wonder about the people who've left. Where did they go when their moment in the Bravo spotlight was over? What are they up to now? Each week, we'll be looking into the lives of one of these familiar faces. Today, it's Samantha Orme from Below Deck.
When Samantha Orme served as newbie third steward on the Honor during the inaugural season of Below Deck, it didn't take long for her to develop a reputation for having issues with authority and, perhaps, hard work. But the fun-loving Floridian was also self-aware. "Working on a megayacht is not for me," she eventually admitted during her Season 1 run, which aired during the summer of 2013. "I had bigger hopes for what this would entail."
After hanging up her steward uniform on the show, Sam moved to Los Angeles, where she's been putting her industrial engineering college degree to good use serving as vice president of engineering at one solar energy firm before moving on to a second where she currently works as a senior project manager.
After her season wound down, she also came clean about her on-screen hookups with the Honor's marine engineer, C.J. LeBeau—and why the two never really seemed to get it right (remember that terrible kiss?). "It was definitely more of an emotional relationship and much less of a sexual relationship," Sam told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live. "I'm sorry C.J. [but] I think perhaps that's why the kiss wasn't good and everything else, 'cause we just don’t have that sexual chemistry."
C.J. readily agreed—and shed even more light on what was up with their awkward romance: "I [was] also dating someone at home and I have specific rules that I cant really go beyond," he told Andy. "A little makeout and cuddling here and there is great but…" Added Sam: "There was definitely no serious sexual hookup. It was tame."
These days, Sam does have a special guy in her life: her 8-year-old Bassett hound/Dalmatian mix, Ed, whom she calls "my world" and often posts about on Instagram.
When she's not working, she often volunteers for the Reddy2Fight foundation creating and delivering care packages to kids fighting cancer.
And she frequently hits the water with friends in California or back home in Florida where her family lives. Although Sam still considers herself an avid recreational sailor and "ocean air junkie," according to her Twitter page, it's all purely for pleasure now.