Former Floribama Shore star Kortni Gilson took to social media this week to explain why she wasn’t at the recent memorial service for her late cast member Kirk Medas, after revealing that she had been receiving “hate” on social media for not attending.
As The Ashley previously told you, Kirk lost his battle with necrotizing pancreatitis and sepsis earlier this month. He was 33 years old.
Earlier this week, Kirk’s ‘Floribama Shore’ cast mates posted photos and videos that were taken in West Palm Beach, Florida, where a memorial service and celebration honoring Kirk’s life were held, though fans of the MTV series were quick to notice that Kortni was missing from the content posted online.
As viewers may remember, Kortni was a main cast member on ‘Floribama Shore’ for the first three seasons, while the rest of the cast– Kirk, Nilsa Prowant, Candace Rice, Aimee Hall, Codi Butts, Jeremiah Buoni and Gus Smyrnios– appeared on all four seasons of the show. (Mattie Lynn Breaux, who was a recurring cast member on Season 3, was also seemingly absent from the get together in West Palm Beach; however, she appears to be on good terms with most of the cast today.)
On Tuesday, Kortni posted a statement to Instagram explaining why she was missing from the recent memorial for Kirk, claiming in her post that she reached out to some of her former co-stars as well as Kirk’s mother prior to the get-together, presumably with the intention of attending.
“I wanted to take a moment to address some of the hate that I have been receiving in reference to Kirk’s memorial and not attending,” Kortni wrote. 
“First and foremost I want to respect the fact that [Kirk’s] passing and the loss his family and friends including myself have experienced is what is most important in all of this,” she wrote. “I was not invited to be a part of his memorial or celebration of life and I did in fact reach out to a few of our cast and his mom.
“With that, I accepted that it wasn’t going to be a place I would be welcomed to be at and decided to keep my plans to attend a bachelorette for my best friend in Arizona because I am her maid of honor,” she continued.
Kortni said that, although her best friend’s bachelorette party and Kirk’s memorial ended up taking place the same weekend, her decision to attend the event in Arizona was not “an attempt to not show up” for Kirk or his family.
“I am at peace with not being included so please give me peace,” she concluded.
Kortni didn’t reveal why she allegedly wasn’t “invited” to be a part of Kirk’s celebration of life, nor have any of her ‘Floribama Shore’ cast mates explained why she may have not been welcomed to attend.
As fans of the show may remember, Kortni exited the ‘Floribama Shore’ house early in Season 3 to focus on her mental health. Prior to Kortni leaving the show, viewers watched her toxic relationship with then-boyfriend Logan Fairbanks unfold on-camera, with Kortni ultimately being forced to take out a protective order against Logan in April 2019 after he allegedly refused to leave Kortni and her co-stars alone after he and Kortni broke up. She did not come back for Season 4.
In May 2021, Kirk appeared on Black Culture: The Break Down YouTube show and discussed what it was like to film without Kortni during Season 4.
“It’s definitely weird without Kortni,” Kirk said at the time. “She just had a lot of problems going on. She needed some, I guess, soul-searching, other help, professional help…filming the show, it’s stressful, man, and if you don’t have the right mental state and you go into it not in the right space, your mental health will go down. You’re on-camera 24/7, you’ve got no privacy…you’ve got to have the right mental space and she didn’t have it…she just needed other help and this show made it worse for her, mentally.”
At no point in the interview did Kirk mention any tension or drama between himself and Kortni, though. In fact, he stated that he had spoken to Kortni a few weeks before that interview, and said that she was doing great.
Still, it appears that Kortni had behind-the-scenes issues with a lot of the cast. In April, Aimee made a TikTok video in which she insinuated that someone from the cast refused to do press events and appearances while on the show and that it had the cast “pissed.”
@aimeehall46Floribama Lore Part 6: The Professional Slacker♬ original sound – Aimee Hall
“It did not sit right with our cast that there was someone on our cast that was not doing the work but was making the same [amount of money] as us,” she said.
Soon after, Kortni responded to Aimee’s video with her own TikTok video, stating that she was aware that Aimee was talking about her in her video. Kortni also told her side of the story, which you can watch below.
@kortnigilson #stitch with @Aimee Hall ♬ original sound – Kortni Gilson
RELATED STORY: ‘Floribama Shore’ Star Kirk Medas Dies At 33 After Battling Severe Necrotizing Pancreatitis & Sepsis
(Photos: MTV; Instagram)
