The Bachelorette alum John Hersey has admitted he was "pissed off" at Blake Moynes for what he said about Katie Thurston following their broken engagement last year.
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Katie and John, a San Diego bartender and one of the Season 17 The Bachelorette star's Week 2 eliminees, went Instagram official with their relationship on November 23, only three short weeks after Katie and Blake announced in late October they had split and decided to end their engagement.
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Katie faced backlash for moving on from her The Bachelorette winner too quickly with a "rebound," and Blake confessed in a November interview that Katie's fast-moving romance with John left him "speechless" and "flabbergasted."
"It kind of was disappointing, because Blake and I -- and I think he's gone on to say now on other podcasts -- we both knew our relationship was not working out," Katie said during a Tuesday appearance on "Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe" in a joint interview with John.
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"My relationship with Blake was a very separate situation [from] my relationship with John. There was no overlap. There was nothing but respect. It's just two different situations."
John interjected, "You know what I couldn't stand, though? Was that interview with Blake. I witnessed their whole relationship as much as I could as her friend, as her best friend."
"I watched how much effort she put into that relationship while it was falling apart," he continued.
"And what really pissed me off about that, like, listening to that podcast was when there started to be a narrative get painted that she was putting no effort in, and Blake was the only one putting effort in at the end."
John was referring to Blake's November 2021 interview on the "Talking It Out" podcast co-hosted by Bryan Abasolo and Mike Johnson, when Blake alluded to the fact that Katie had essentially given up on their relationship and may have had John in her pocket as a backup plan all along.
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Blake also said at the time, "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]."
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John therefore proceeded to tell Kaitlyn, who starred on The Bachelorette's eleventh season, "And furthermore, [Blake was spinning the narrative] that in that time where she was 'absent,' that she was somehow emotionally cheating with me."
"I'm sitting back and I tried not to say anything for a while, but when that narrative came to be out, I was just like, 'I can't stay silent about this.' Because I watched her suffer at the end, before there was anything between us. And it just pissed me off."
Shortly after Blake conducted that interview, John released a statement via Reddit on Katie's behalf denying any "wrongdoing" on their part. John insisted in late November that Katie did not cheat on Blake and the couple's relationship was "ALWAYS PLATONIC" until Katie officially became a single woman again.
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"I met Blake and we hung out with Blake for a solid, what 12 [or] 18 hours? Something like that," John recalled on Kaitlyn's podcast.
"Yeah, I introduced Blake to the people in my life," Katie interjected, "including John [and our mutual friend Stephen] who are a huge part of my life during this whole Bachelorette journey."
"And I did not have a negative opinion of Blake at all," John clarified, "like, we had fun together. We did an escape room and we hung out all day. But that's why when that happened, I was disappointed at first."
John then accused Blake of trying to get Bachelor Nation on his side after his split from Katie.
"I realized -- I was, like, 'This is him capitalizing on this opportunity,' which I understand. I get how it works, like, seeing this world now for the past almost a year. It's crazy," John conceded.
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"But when it was at the expense of my friend, I couldn't [deal]. It was frustrating."
Viewers watched Katie accept Blake's marriage proposal on The Bachelorette's Season 17 finale, which aired in August 2021.
Katie proceeded to move to San Diego, CA, and continue hanging out with John while Blake traveled to Africa to pursue his wildlife conservation efforts.
Katie and Blake attempted to make a long-distance relationship work as people simultaneously questioned if sparks were flying between Katie and John.
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But Katie and John repeated on the podcast how they were just friends until a lightning bolt suddenly struck and made the pair realize they had romantic feelings for each other.
John said he and Katie "very, very carefully" decided to risk their friendship for a shot at love together, and John called it "terrifying."
"Once we made that decision [to leave the friend zone], you can't go back," John explained.
And Katie chimed in, "Which is also why I think we came out [as a couple] so early as we did, because once we explored our connection, we knew that there was something long-term there and we knew that we were going to have to kind of own that."
Katie and John went public with their relationship in late November when Katie posted footage of John on her Instagram Story set to Taylor Swift's "Begin Again," a song about falling in love all over again.
The John dedication served as the conclusion of Katie's "12 Days of Messy" challenge in which she had been tasked with matching every song on Taylor's re-released "Red" album to one of her Season 17 bachelors.
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Blake initially called Katie's romance "a bomb drop" on him.
"That was the thing -- people talked about like, 'Oh, that was so quick,' and that's fine. You can think [about] timelines, that's fine," Katie said on the podcast.
"The show is its own quickness. But we just kind of wanted to own exactly what we are. We didn't want to sneak around in public and have people take photos of us or come up with their own agenda or narrative."
Katie and John have been defending and showing off their relationship ever since, and Blake recently told Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti on their "The Ben & Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast" that he's ready to start dating again, but only in the real world.
"I could probably talk to her and have a cordial conversation," Blake confirmed earlier this month.
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