ABC
Katie Thurston’s love life has continued to make headlines since leaving “The Bachelorette” and her “12 Days of Messy” was no exception. During the social media event, each day she picked a contestant from her season that she matched with a song from Taylor Swift’s released “Red” album. For her final day, she revealed she was dating John Hersey to the tune of “Begin Again.”
Hersey was eliminated during the show’s second week. The pair reconnected after filming and formed a friendship before becoming romantic. During a December 2021 Instagram Live, she tried to “set the record straight on this, kind of.”
“John’s role I think grew the closer we go to the last day,” Thurston said. “Like initially it was going to be very, like, lighthearted. It was like ‘Oh, we’ll just share a picture. It will just be like a picture from the show.’”
Acknowledging that it was “controversial,” she further explained, “I wanted to show that to me, John is my world. John is handsome. John is romantic. John is everything and I wanted to really make a big grand gesture to show that. Was there a lot of hate that came with that? Yeah.”
In the end, Thurston admitted she would likely not do “12 Days of Messy” if she had a do-over. As she captioned the clip, “Do I have regrets? Yes.”
Thurston Reveals Why She Didn’t Give Blake Moynes’ a ‘Heads Up’ on New Relationship
Thurston drew ire from fans for not telling ex-fiance Blake Moynes about the relationship.
“It’s a hard thing to navigate, you know,” the 30-year-old explained. “Like people are always like ‘Well, you should have told Blake and it’s like ‘Well, we talked about that, we talked about giving Blake a heads up … But here’s the thing that people I think forget – we’re just normal people with normal lives and when have you ever had to tell an ex that you’re seeing someone new. And like how would you tell them that? And would I still have received the same amount of hate even if I did give Blake a heads up? I don’t know.”
Thurston continued, “All I know is that in the moment I was and am still the happiest I’ve been and I wanted to make a big grand statement about where I’m at and who I’m with. That’s all I can do is live my truth, live my happiness.”
During the Instagram Live, Hersey revealed he holds dual citizenship with Canada and the United States of America. Thurston commented, “So I always joke that like fate crossed some wires a little bit and got confused on some s***. This is the Canadian I’m supposed to end up with. No shade, just facts.”
Moynes Called out Thurston for Emotional Cheating
Thurston and Moynes announced their split in October with a joint statement. “It is with mutual love and respect that we have decided to go our separate ways,” each wrote on Instagram. “We are so grateful for the moments we shared together and the entire journey that has unfolded this year, but we ultimately have concluded that we are not compatible as life partners, and it is the most caring choice for both of us to move forward independently.”
In November, Moynes broke his silence on her new relationship during an appearance on Bachelor Nation’s ‘Talking It Out” podcast.
“You start to think about timelines. I know they spent a lot of time together and stuff, but there’s just no way, I didn’t have an inkling,” he said. “I’m a very secure guy, a confident guy, and I give my trust out 100 percent, especially to the person I should be trusting the most.”
Continuing, he said, “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.”
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