Chase Stokes revealed he pulled Madison Bailey from the water after crew members mistook her real distress for acting during an “Outer Banks” shoot.
Stokes, 33, and Bailey, 27, described the incident in a new Entertainment Weekly interview tied to the show’s fifth and final season, which dropped on Netflix last Thursday. The pair were filming in Barbados when Bailey went under while the cameras rolled.
“We were in Barbados and there’s a scene when JJ gets knocked off of a boat and he’s unconscious in the water and Kiara’s holding him up,” Stokes recalled in the interview. “I realized that I couldn’t see Bails’ face anymore.”
Bailey said they “were treading water” for a period before action was called on the scene, while Stokes noted “it was really hard to communicate” in the moment. The actress found herself unable to get closer to the boat, creating what she described as “a whole struggle.”
“I was like, ‘Oh no, Bails has been under there for a while,'” Stokes remembered. “So I jumped off the boat and I realized that she was not able to breathe underwater.”
The confusion on set only compounded the danger. Both actors explained that some crew members believed the pair were improvising, treating the life-threatening situation as scripted material for the Netflix series.
“I was like, ‘No, she’s drowning,'” Stokes said, adding, “I was like, ‘Hey that’s not acting.'”
Bailey added with a laugh, “I was drowning. Everyone’s like, ‘Wow, she’s really good.'”
The rescue came during underwater sequences that both actors identified as the most demanding work of their time on the show. Before recalling Bailey’s near-drowning, Stokes said “the underwater work” was the “most challenging” thing he’s done across five seasons of “Outer Banks.” Bailey agreed that filming underwater was her “hardest” part of production, though she also teased Stokes about his swimming abilities.
“You actually make a bad day worse,” the actress joked. “When I’m struggling to barely swim, Chase is like [fake swims]. I swear he’s breathing under there just to make me look bad.”
Stokes and Bailey play John B. And Kiara, respectively, in the teen drama about a group of friends in North Carolina’s Outer Banks community. The series, which premiered in 2020, also stars Madelyn Cline, Jonathan Daviss, Drew Starkey, Carlacia Grant and Austin North. The fifth season marked the show’s conclusion, with all episodes now streaming.
During an appearance on Netflix’s official “Outer Banks” podcast, Stokes opened up about the final moments between the cast and crew on the last day of production.
“It just all came to a close as the sun was setting, in true typical ‘Outer Banks’ fashion,” he said.
“It felt surreal,” Stokes added. “We were all just standing there with our arms around each other.”
In the viral moment that preceded the drowning incident, Bailey had been treading water while filming a scene where her character Kiara supports an unconscious JJ in the water. The sequence required both actors to remain in open water near a boat, with limited ability to signal for help once Bailey began struggling. The crew’s mistaken assumption that the distress was performance rather than reality left Stokes to recognize the danger and intervene himself, jumping in to pull his co-star to safety.
The final season of “Outer Banks” is now streaming in full on Netflix.