The former Bachelorette is dating John Hersey following her split from Blake, her ex-fiancé.
Blake Moynes is speaking out about his ex's new relationship. During an interview with the Talking It Out with Bachelor Nation podcast, the wildlife conservationist accused his ex-fiancée, Katie Thurston, of having an emotional affair with her new boyfriend, John Hersey, when they were engaged. ET has reached out to Katie for comment.
Blake and Katie met on her season of The Bachelorette. John was another one of Katie's suitors on the show, though he was sent home in the second week. During the show's August finale, Katie and Blake got engaged, but later announced their split in October.
About a month later, Katie, who'd openly maintained a post-show friendship with John, ended her "12 Days of Messy" challenge by sharing a video of her and John on a helicopter ride, which was set to Taylor Swift's song, "Begin Again." She also included a video of her and John's Bachelorette introduction. Following those posts, multiple outlets reported that Katie and John are officially dating.
"I've been speechless for a lot of it. I'm just still trying to process it. Everyone's asking me questions like I have the answers. I don't. I have no idea. When everyone heard this, I heard the exact same thing," Blake said on the podcast. "There was speculation, I think, obviously, but I really thought there was no way, just based on timeline and everything. I'd love to be able to provide more insight, I literally just have nothing. I am trying to ask myself all the questions to try and figure out myself, and I don't know how. I know that's probably not the best thing to do."
Part of why Blake "didn't see this coming," he said, is because he and Katie never had "a conversation about John being a threat in any way."
"I was shocked," he admitted. "I thought that she might at least tell me on the side, just because we have had very cordial, easy conversations that we have had through text... Why not reach out to me and tell me that at least to give me a heads up?"
Blake said that he was aware of Katie's friendship with John from the beginning and didn't let it bother him, as he considers himself to be "a very secure guy."
With the news that Katie and John are now dating, though, Blake is wondering if there was something more going on between his ex and her new man the whole time. He attributes this concern largely to Katie's "12 Days of Messy" challenge, which began two weeks after their breakup.
"She probably had an idea two weeks after that who was going to be number 12 and how she was going to announce it," he theorized. "So naturally you start to think about timeline. I know they spent a lot of time together and stuff, but there's just no way. I never had an inkling. I'm just a very secure guy, a very confident guy. I give my trust out 100 percent, especially to the person I should be trusting the most."
"I really don't think there was any physical cheating there, but there's clearly emotional for it to transition as quickly as it did," Blake continued. "I feel stupid and foolish for allowing it to happen, I guess to some degree. I don't know if it was partially me, too. Was she in some sense emotionally cheating to some degree because I wasn't able to provide something with words of affirmation?"
While Blake firmly believes that Katie did not physically cheat on him, he said of John, "He had more into it or was at least pursuing it or something or wanted something to be hanging out with her all the time."
"I was with them. I went on the same plane as them and I didn't think anything of it," Blake said. "Obviously, I would see them together... but I put my full trust in there's nothing more than literally just a friendship. I think it just was, but it allowed them to form something, at least emotionally, where they could see something with each other that made it so easy for them to transition when this ended."
It also made Blake question if Katie had John "in the back pocket" throughout his whole engagement to her.
"She at least had some emotional connection, right? It happened too quickly. How? Two weeks after! There had to be something there," Blake said. "He provided her something that she really liked that made the transition easy, that I wasn't giving her or something. I don't know."
While Blake noted that he does "trust" Katie, he remains "flabbergasted" by her decision to move on from their engagement so publicly and so quickly.
"This transition right away with the John thing that really takes away a lot of what I thought it was, which really sucks," he said. "... I'm trying to piece it together."
The whole situation, Blake said, has made him waver in his personal policy not to have any regrets.
"I'm trying to figure out why it went wrong, why it transitioned so quickly into a new relationship, what was I in all of this?" he questioned. "... I try to stand by having no regrets, but it's instances like this where you really start to fight yourself with having no regrets, with just the way things play out."
Looking back, Blake said, joining Katie's season may have been a mistake from the start.
"I chased her because of the things I thought she was. I got a lot of those things. I knew I was going to take heat for going on that season," he said of arriving late to Katie's season after appearing on the previous season of The Bachelorette. "I could've taken the easy road and went to Paradise to be on a show. I didn't. I chased her. I knew the risk in that. I knew I could look like an idiot, and I knew I'd still get the flack for it, but I chased her."
Katie's new relationship has also made Blake question his decision to stand by Katie after her emotional breakup with Greg Grippo.
"Looking back, seeing how it all panned out after the fact, you saw how much of a man I tried to be through all of the Greg stuff," he said. "... Try to go back and watch that episode nine. Try to watch that after you've proposed to somebody and try to feel 100 percent confident. It's almost next to impossible."
As for the reason for their breakup initially, Blake said that he and Katie "started to have challenges" as soon as they entered the real world as a couple. Their initial trip together "didn't meet expectations," and then the pair struggled to communicate while Blake was away working in Africa, all while they dealt with differing love languages.
"We definitely fell in love on the show, hard, and it was f**king awesome. It was awesome," Blake said. "... We are very, very different people aside from the humor, unapologetically being yourself similarities that we have. We are very bold and out there in our own ways, which I don't think meshed very well when it came to real life and the distance. We would be really, really great best friends because we could have a lot of fun together, but we don't have what it takes to be lovers in a long-lasting relationship."
"We found that it was going to be absolutely exhausting, because it became exhausting very quickly. In that frame of time, there's no way we should've been in that situation, feeling the way we were, the tension, all those things, that quickly when you're supposed to be in a honeymoon phase," he continued. "We had that. We were so confused. We didn't understand why... But what it came down to is, we're very mature and have been through relationships before. If we want to make this work, we will have to drastically change who we are as people to make this work."
Katie previously spoke out on Instagram about her split from Blake, and seemed to cite many of the same reasons for the breakup as he did.
"We were together for six months. Blake and I are very levelheaded and mature and we communicate very well on our thoughts," she said. "We just both knew if this is how our first six months was as a couple, going forward it was not going to be in our best interest for our happiness to stay together, and so we, as mentioned, mutually decided to part our ways."
The last straw, Blake said, was when Katie canceled a trip to see him, which led to their eventual breakup on the phone.
"She didn't think it was a good idea to come. I told her I'd come to San Diego. She didn't think that was a great idea. I don't want to make this seem one-sided, because it was mutual," he said. "... I wasn't totally against [the breakup] because it was weird at that point. It was weird. And so when she didn't fight, I also didn't fight for it very hard, just like she didn't either, but I definitely would've rather had a conversation in person, not through a FaceTime."
"We both cried on the phone," he added. "It wasn't fun. It was really weird. I hated it."
Blake said that he hopes that this news about John "is the end" of this saga with Katie.
"I hope it just works and [they] just go. I'm done being attached to this. This messiness," he said. "This last little straw is very frustrating for me to want to keep holding on to being like no regrets, no regrets. I just want it to go away... I just feel let down now on the other side of things, but I also probably let her down some. This isn't a pity or a sympathy thing, I just want to get it out there so it's done. I'm good. It is what it is."
Even with all the drama, Blake said that he does wish Katie "the best."
"As much as things have been sour the last little bit here, we just both want to, I think, forget, as much as it would've been nice to have some great memories from that, I just want to kind of forget about it now," he said. "... We weren't supposed to be together. We both know that. I think we're both thankful that we found that out early enough that this didn't drag out. I just wish her, I guess and John, the best moving forward, because we just want to forget now and move on. Next chapter coming up."
Prior to the news of Katie's new relationship, Blake told the same podcast that the next chapter for him won't include another stint on the Bachelor franchise.
"I am in no way prepared to go through meeting 30 women, especially after all of that. My ego is hurt right now. I feel like an idiot with how things played out," he said. "... When I'm ready in the real world, I'll start dating in the real world. I hopefully will find my person. I'm not thinking about a show. It seems hectic to me and exhausting. I'll be dating in the real world when I'm ready, and I don't know when that'll be... I'm not chasing again on this f**king show ever. I can't. I just can't."
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