Greg Grippo was "broken" and absolutely devastated once he returned home from his The Bachelorette breakup with Katie Thurston, according to his friend and Big Brother alum Kaitlyn Herman.
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Greg was shown telling Katie that he was in love with her, she filled a hole in his heart that was left from his father's passing, and he planned to get down on one knee at the end of the process for the first and only time.
When Katie just stared at Greg longingly and said she loved looking at him, Greg expressed hurt and frustration over Katie's guarded response and apparent reluctance to share the depth of her feelings for him.
As the episode aired, Reality Steve spoiler blogger Steve Carbone tweeted on Monday night, "This victim game Greg is playing isn't working at all. And we haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet."
Kaitlyn replied to Carbone's post on Twitter, "The VICTIM GAME? That was the most vulnerable I've ever seen a man speak in my entire life."
The 27-year-old Big Brother alum added, "And the response was 'I just like looking at you.' I watched this man cry EVERYDAY when he got home. He was BROKEN."
Kaitlyn rushing to Greg's defense erupted a bit of a debate on her Twitter page, especially since some viewers accused Greg of emotionally manipulating Katie during their final breakup conversation.
Greg, appearing to be in a very vulnerable state, essentially scolded Katie for focusing too much on roses and the competition aspect of The Bachelorette rather than their "real" relationship and his need for some validation.
"Girl we get it he's your friend. But it was clearly gaslighting her. Blaming everything on her was tough to watch," one Twitter user wrote.
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Another person agreed, "He kept talking over her & wouldn't let her get a word in edgewise. Did he not know what show he signed up for & that she can not say I love you back until the end? He was being manipulative towards her."
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOWKaitlyn replied on Tuesday, "He wasn't asking for her to say I love you and he made that abundantly clear. Also not for nothing, many leads have said I love you at this point (to multiple people)."
The same person countered, "Yes they have, & as she tried to tell him, she wasn't going to say that until the end she was saving it for the last man that was going to be there, she even told that to the 3 families that were there. He wouldn't listen to her at all, he kept talking over her."
But Kaitlyn stood her ground and responded, "Again..... he didn't need, ask, or want her to say I love you."
A third Twitter user wrote to Kaitlyn, "[I] get he's your friend but as a friend, you should hold him accountable. It's a tough as situation in the end, Katie was doing the best she could to reassure him and he bailed first chance he got. And consciously made her feel low, like he wanted to punish her."
Kaitlyn additionally "liked" a tweet by a The Bachelorette fan who chose to "completely disagree" with Carbone's claim Greg was playing the victim and not doing a good job at it.
"The guy pours his heart out and she still is sitting there with a blank face... i really think she wants 3 guys to propose to her at the end of this... glad greg is going home he deserves better lolll," the tweet read.
Katie appeared to accuse Greg of gaslighting her when she took to her Instagram Stories on Monday night and shared a post that read, "So you want to talk about gaslighting."
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The Instagram slideshow defines "gaslighting" as "a form of emotional abuse or psychological manipulation involving distorting the truth in order to confuse or instill doubt in another person to the point they question their own sanity or reality."
It also lists the following as signs of gaslighting: "lying, discrediting, deflecting blame, minimizing, shifting blame and denying wrongdoing."
While Katie didn't name Greg directly or even mention her The Bachelorette breakup, fans were led to assume she was referring to Greg as the gaslighter since social media was buzzing about their brutal breakup at the time and many Twitter users had even called Greg out for messing with Katie's mind and emotions.
Greg's friend and The Bachelorette alum Connor Brennan also defended Greg and wrote in a since-deleted tweet how there was "no gaslighting" in that heated breakup conversation between Greg and Katie.
During Monday night's penultimate episode of The Bachelorette's seventeenth season, Greg visited Katie in her hotel room to discuss the conversation they had during hometown dates in which Greg had cried about how much he loved her and Katie barely said a word in reply.
Greg seemed desperate for reassurance that their love was as real to Katie as it was to him -- but Katie only turned the suitor off more once she called him her "No. 1 since the beginning."
Katie, who had made it clear to producers and viewers that Greg was her clear choice out of her Final 3 bachelors, asked Greg to trust her because she cared for him immensely, but she was still holding out in order to reveal her true feelings at the Final Rose Ceremony.
Greg therefore said he was "done" and quit the show, which left Katie bawling in a bathroom and questioning if she should end The Bachelorette process early and just go home because she had lost her confidence and felt "destroyed."
The Bachelorette episode on Monday night ended on a cliffhanger, with Katie trying to decide if she could even most past her split from Greg and resume dating her Final 2 bachelors, Justin Glaze and Blake Moynes.
The Bachelorette's three-hour finale for Season 17 will air Monday, August 9 at 8PM ET/PT on ABC.
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
