Heading into The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys‘ Season 3 premiere, Steven McBee Jr. was already going without sleep amid mounting stress. Not only was his father, Steve McBee Sr., facing serious jail time after pleading guilty to one count of federal crop insurance fraud, but the fate of the family’s finances also hung in the balance.
How to Watch
The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys premieres Monday, June 15 at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo. Episodes stream next day on Peacock.
“Every single loan on our books, there is a moral clause where if one of the owners happens to have a felony, the bank can reconsider the loan and call the note to where you have to pay off that loan within 15 to 30 days,” Steven Jr. reminded McBee Farm & Cattle Co. CFO and part-owner Galyna Saltkovska. “And my fear is that if something goes bad tomorrow, we’re going to have a domino effect of banks calling notes.”
He elaborated in a confessional, “We were already in a heavy debt scenario beforehand. Throw in a felony charge on top of that, and things just got a hell of a lot worse. If any of these banks pull these loans, that number could end up reaching eight figures really quickly.”
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Galyna, for her part, reiterated that the McBees had already been “forced to sell quite a bit of land to pay off some loans” over the past year, amounting to roughly 60,000 acres. The two also stated that any additional financial fallout would not only affect the farms, but their homes, car washes, meat facility, fulfillment center, and other business ventures could also be impacted.
“I have selfishly thought a little bit about tomorrow and the repercussions of it, and it kind of feels like my dad’s not the only one being sentenced,” Steven admitted in his chat with Galyna. “Because if things go bad, this farm sort of becomes my prison.”
He added to a producer, “If my dad ends up going to prison, I’m going to have to step in even more than I am now.”
Why the McBee family decided to sell their headquarters after Steve Sr.’s sentencing
The next day, Steve Sr. was sentenced to serve 24 months in federal prison, along with having to pay a combined $7 million in fines and restitution. “My dad facing a $7 million fine is hard to even fathom,” Steven Jr. remarked in a confessional. “That’s a ton of money that we do not have.”Â
In the aftermath of receiving the news, Steven met with brothers Jesse McBee, Cole McBee, and Brayden McBee, along with “den mother” Tessa Lollar, in the company’s War Room for an honest conversation about the “hard decisions” they would have to make in the coming days. “Anything we don’t need, we’re getting rid of,” Steven announced. “And so, we’ve gotta sell the facility. I know we love this facility, I know we love this headquarters and built it out as our dream facility, but… We’ve got no other choice.”
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During their conversation, the brothers revealed that the family’s car wash business alone had racked up approximately $35 million in debt at that point. They estimated that by selling their headquarters, aka “the heart of the farm” — which included their grain bins, all of their liquid storage, their shop, and their aviation building — they could earn somewhere between five and 10 million dollars in profit.
“As much as I hate to do that, that is the only path forward where we can keep the main farm and all of our houses,” Steven explained of the “sentimental” decision. “Let’s cut down debt, get the banks to breathe a little bit and to stop blowing us up, so then we can focus on the actual businesses.”
Why Cole McBee and Kacie Adkison were worried about losing their new home
Earlier in The McBee Dynasty‘s June 15 episode, Kacie Adkison confronted Cole after learning from Alli McBee that there was a possibility they could lose the “dream home” they’d just built on land that was in Steve Sr.’s name.
“If we did lose the house, I just don’t know what we’ll do,” new mom Kacie shared with a producer. “We put all of our money into our house. We can’t just start over. We thought this is where Blair’s gonna grow up. It makes me sick to think about when so much is already going on.”
Though Cole was still unsure what might happen next, he explained in a separate confessional, “For all the land that’s in my brothers and I’s name, that stuff is safe. But for some reason, my house and the ground that it’s sitting on, whenever it got bought, it got put in my dad’s name.”
After talking through the situation’s unknowns with Kacie, he continued, “I did not even want her to even think about this going into the sentencing day tomorrow. What do I do? Just scare her when I don’t even know what’s gonna happen?”
As they all navigate Steve Sr.’s post-sentencing fallout, get even more details on the McBee family’s lives heading into Season 3.
