The Bachelorette alum Blake Moynes has explained when his relationship with Katie Thurston fell apart and what exactly happened in the weeks before they announced their split in late October 2021.
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Over the last three months or so since his split from Katie, Blake has been trying to move on and focus on himself, and he said he's finally in a "good" place.
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Now that the sudden and seemingly unexpected breakup stings a little less, Blake opened up to Season 20 The Bachelor star Ben Higgins about the demise of his relationship with Katie during a Thursday appearance on "The Ben & Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast."
When reflecting back on his experience filming The Bachelorette's seventeenth season and competing for Katie's heart, he shared, "We didn't have one thing holding us back, really, aside from some of the [Greg Grippo] stuff that happened."
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"Our dates, every conversation we had, it was up and up. We didn't have a little setback, so it was just easy to fall in love and it was easy to get there. It was easy to feel like this was the most incredible thing ever."
Blake revealed, "And then real-life came."
"And, yeah," he continued with a pause, "I don't even know how to explain that feeling of trying to reel it back in."
"The more setbacks that came, it was really clear that this was going in a wrong direction and there's no way of trying to reel it back," he added.
Blake said he and Katie knew their relationship wasn't going to work shortly within a month after The Bachelorette finale aired in August 2021.
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In September of last year, Blake and Katie spent their first "long chunk of time together" -- about a three-week period when they traveled to New York City and then San Diego, CA -- and they both realized something was off.
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"We were in a honeymoon stage and we weren't acting like we were in the honeymoon stage, so there was something clearly wrong with that," Blake explained.
Blake said he and Katie noticed how they just "weren't compatible in a lot of different ways."
"I was expecting -- I think we were both expecting -- to have a really amazing time and love San Diego. She had a new place and stuff," Blake recalled, referring to how Katie was in the process of moving to San Diego when they were engaged.
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"And just from day to day, there was just tension that I don't really know how to explain. We were just not delivering what each other needed during that timeframe."
Blake revealed, "It was that three weeks that ultimately ended it."
"I didn't see her for a while after that, because I did go to Kenya," elaborated the Canada native, who traveled to Africa for his wildlife conservation efforts.
"You know, it was a combination of those two things built up, and it was just like, 'What are we what are we doing?' And we decided to pull the plug."
Blake admitted he and Katie were not as ready for an engagement as they thought they were.
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However, he insisted that he doesn't regret going on The Bachelorette for the second time and proposing marriage to Katie.
"When I weigh it all out, I remember how excited and happy I was in that moment, regardless of the outcome now... It was truly a feeling of, 'This is love and this is going to be it.' And I wouldn't take that because, even though it didn't work out, because I remember how great it was," Blake shared.
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Blake also wants to believe their engagement was real and genuine, although he sometimes questions Katie's feelings on the subject since her apparent frontrunner of Season 17, Greg, had quit on her towards the end of the process.
"I hope she doesn't regret it either... I selfishly want to know [because] I have those doubts, 'Was I [chosen by] default?' [after] all those things with Greg. So I want to feel like this wasn't some dumb fake thing," Blake explained.
"I want her to be like, 'This was as real and, you know, those feelings -- I have the same ones you have and I was on the same wavelength, if that makes sense. I want it to feel as real on her end as it did for me. [And] I really do believe that. I do, I think."
Blake said he's still healing from the breakup and trying to make sense of how Katie had handled things considering she went Instagram official with one of her Week 2 The Bachelorette eliminees, John Hersey, in November 2021.
Katie and Blake attempted to make a long-distance relationship work as fans questioned if sparks were flying between Katie and her supposed completely-platonic friend John when they'd be spotted hanging out together in San Diego.
"The way she... moved on so quick, it's like, 'Okay, well, we're not getting back together,' especially based on the song she played for me on her 12 Days of Breakup -- 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,'" Blake said with a laugh. "That was unexpected."
In November 2021, Katie celebrated the holidays and re-release of Taylor Swift's "Red" album by posting "12 Days of Messy" on her Instagram Stories in which she matched one of her The Bachelorette suitors with a song from Taylor's album every day.
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The social-media event ultimately led to Katie's announcement she's dating John, whom she's now head over heels in love with.
During Blake's podcast interview with Ben, he seemed to take a little jab at Katie while giving fans advice about picking up the pieces after a hard breakup.
Blake said he thinks it's important for a person not to find a "rebound" and jump into a new relationship because it's just like "putting a Band-Aid" on a broken heart.
He also shared how he's still not ready to talk to Katie in-depth yet, despite her recent attempts to reach out to him.
"Things always get better. You learn from it," concluded Blake.
"Even though you feel you've lost the world in a sense, she probably wasn't the world if she's not with you -- and you're going to find something probably better. And that's what I find in all depressing situations."
Katie previously hinted on social media that she and Blake were fighting too much during their six-month relationship and broke up due to their different communication styles.
The TikTok star and social-media influencer also suggested that Blake was unable to make her happy and vice versa.
An insider told The Sun late last year that Katie's "outbursts eventually became too much" for Blake "to handle."
But Blake admitted he was "flabbergasted" and "speechless" upon discovering Katie had begun dating John so quickly after their split on the "Talking It Out with Bachelor Nation" podcast hosted by The Bachelorette alums Bryan Abasolo and Mike Johnson.
Blake said in late November, "I don't think there was any physical cheating there, but there's clearly emotional [cheating] for it to transition as quickly as it did [from friendship to romance]."
John, however, posted a lengthy statement on Reddit shortly afterward claiming Katie never cheated on Blake and his relationship with the former The Bachelorette star truly started out as an innocent friendship.
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John claimed his friendship with Katie only blossomed into a romance once Blake was out of the picture and Katie was able to open up her heart again.
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