Whatever Happened to Josh Harris From 'Deadliest Catch'?

Content warning: This post mentions child sexual assault.

In the early days of Discovery Channel's reality series Deadliest Catch, viewers met fisherman Phil Harris and his sons Josh Harris and Jake Harris.

After Phil died in 2010, his sons worked to buy their dad's commercial crab fishing boat, the Cornelia Marie. They also continued to appear on Deadliest Catch, though Jake left in 2012 (before returning on and off in the franchise), and Josh was booted for good in 2022. What happened to Josh, and where is he now?

Josh was fired from Deadliest Catch in late 2022, ahead of Season 19, after resurfaced allegations of sexual assault made the rounds online. According to Radar Online, Josh was accused of raping a 4-year-old girl back in 1998, when Josh was around 16 years old. He reportedly wasn't arrested until the following year because of a delay in DNA evidence processing, and he pled to a lesser charge, ultimately getting hit with fourth degree assault and one count of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes.

Per The Sun, he was sentenced to 30 days of confinement for each charge along with 24 months of supervision and 150 hours of community service. He also had to complete a 24-month sex offender program.

After the case resurfaced online in 2022, Discovery cut its ties with Josh. "We've been made aware of this issue. Josh will not appear in future episodes of this series," the network told Radar in September 2022. He would later be edited out of Season 19.

As for where Josh is now, some folks on Reddit claimed in March 2024 that Josh was selling his house, but there hasn't been much else said about him.

All in all, it looks like Josh has been keeping a pretty low profile since he got the boot from Deadliest Catch.

Jake struggled with addiction for years, which he has said stemmed from an injury he had in high school, when he became hooked on drugs. And after Phil's death, Jake said he turned to drugs and alcohol. In 2019, he was sentenced to 18 months behind bars after a confrontation with a park ranger led to a police chase; he was also found with heroin and various distribution materials. Josh told TV Ace in April 2021 that Jake was doing better, but the following month saw Jake arrested for a DUI.

Report online or in-person sexual abuse of a child or teen by calling the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453 or visiting childhelp.org. Learn more about the warning signs of child abuse at RAINN.org.