The Bachelorette alum Katie Thurston has revealed why she blocked Nick Viall, which clearly rubbed the former The Bachelor star and his girlfriend Natalie Joy the wrong way.
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Katie revealed on TikTok in July that she had blocked Nick on her phone for "talking sh-t" about her, and then the Season 21 The Bachelor star and his girlfriend Natalie clapped back on Nick's "The Viall Files" podcast.
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Natalie vented at the time about how she had "such an issue" with Katie blocking Nick because her boyfriend had allegedly done nothing but "help her and give her advice, which she's never taken."
"Is it because she's trying to protect herself from texting Nick things she shouldn't be saying? I think she is platforming a lie," Natalie said.
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Katie said on Tuesday's episode the "Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe" podcast that she's not sure if Nick knows the reason why she blocked him.
"We hadn't spoke about it, and he tried to defend himself. And I'm like, 'Why do you care?!' [But] the reason he is blocked is for invading my privacy and sharing my texts a year ago. And then here he is doing it on a huge platform," Katie revealed.
On "The Viall Files" podcast in July, Natalie asked Nick to read his last text-message exchange with Katie before she apparently blocked him.
Nick said the whole conversation started last year when he tweeted about a Season 17 episode of The Bachelorette and Katie allegedly texted him, "Best TV? Boo."
Nick recalled giving Katie his thoughts on the episode, and then Natalie proceeded to read the texts.
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"Katie says, 'Ultimately my opinion on [Greg Grippo] doesn't matter. I knew before he left he wasn't The One. It was hard watching it back and always giving him validation, only for him to leave the way he did. But I knew even then that there was zero chance him and I would have worked in the real world,'" Natalie read.
Nick added, "Then I wrote, 'It is good that you have clarity. As long as you are happy, that's what matters.' And she hearted that message."
"So all I'm saying is that from this text, she knew it wasn't going to be Greg, and then she went to [After the Final Rose] and pointed fingers at Greg and called him an actor and said this was the biggest performance of his life, when she was the one obviously acting the entire time," Nick said.
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Natalie then accused Katie of "clown behavior," adding, "Sorry, do not come for my man!"
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At one point, Natalie called Katie "Little Miss Katie" in her rant, and so Katie dished it right back when telling her side of the story to Kaitlyn, who starred on The Bachelorette's eleventh season and co-hosted Katie's edition alongside Tayshia Adams.
"Little Miss Natalie is all up in arms over her man," Katie quipped.
"She decides -- and Nick doesn't stop her -- to read a text that I had sent Nick, which was about my feelings [for] Greg back during, like, when my season was airing."
"And he reads it, or allows her to read it, on a podcast -- a private text sent to Nick as if some way to, like, I don't know, destroy me?" she continued. "Who knows."
Katie apparently wasn't phased by Nick and Natalie's so-called revelation, insisting, "I stand by everything I said, like [she] read it and I was like, 'I've been saying that. So like, I don't know what kind of, like, aha moment that you thought that was or whatever.'"
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Katie reiterated, "But anyway, the reason, ironically, that he is blocked is for sharing my f-cking texts to somebody else."
Katie then took the opportunity to take a jab at Nick.
"I'm going to say it right now: Nick is a freakin' politician with Bachelor Nation and everyone knows it. That's why he doesn't like to text; he likes to call people, so that people can't view exactly what he did to me, which is share what he's saying," Katie said.
Nick and Natalie also slammed Katie on "The Viall Files" podcast earlier this summer for more personal reasons.
Natalie, a surgical technician who went Instagram official with Nick in January 2021, suggested Katie is "mean to other people for no reason" and "talks sh-t about the people on [her] season."
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Natalie, citing The Bachelorette alum Michael Allio as an example, said she doesn't understand why Katie constantly brings up bachelors from her season and throws them under the bus when those men have moved on.
And Nick noted, "To Natalie's point, it is almost as if [Katie] feels like she has this ownership over these guys from her season."
Nick said he was particularly bothered by how "mean" and "cruel" Katie had been to Thomas Jacobs -- who is now engaged to The Bachelorette alum Becca Kufrin -- "over nothing."
Katie ignited all this drama when she joked about how she had forgotten about Nick's "existence" during a TikTok Live Q&A session on July 10, according to Us Weekly.
"Does Nick Viall not like you? Nick Viall is blocked from my phone. There's some tea for you," Katie told fans.
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"I don't know, Nick is just -- I don't know what to say about him, to be honest."
Katie continued, "I get DMs sometimes that are like, 'Oh, my God, Nick won't stop talking sh-t about you.' I messaged him one time and I was like, 'Hey, just so you know, people are finding the things you're saying [about me] kind of odd.'"
"And in short, he basically [turned it around on me]. He was like, 'How great that you have fans that care about you! Don't take it personally!' Whatever," Katie said. "You do you, Nick. I'll see you at the top."
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Greg appeared to be Katie's frontrunner and the guy she was truly in love with on The Bachelorette's seventeenth season, which filmed in Spring 2021 and aired that summer, but he quit the show after expressing his love to her because he was unconvinced she felt the same way.
Greg accused Katie at the time of only caring about her show and giving out roses rather than the authenticity of their relationship. He wanted her to speak what was on her heart, and Katie had given him very little to work with.
Katie therefore picked wildlife manager Blake Moynes as her winner and the couple got engaged, but the pair split only a couple of months after the finale aired in October 2021.
Katie then announced she had moved on and started a new romance with one of her Week 2 eliminees, John Hersey, in November.
Katie faced backlash for having moved on from her former fiance too quickly with a "rebound," and Blake said on the "Talking It Out with Bachelor Nation" podcast in November that he felt "flabbergasted," shocked and "speechless" upon finding out about Katie's romance with John.
Blake also said he believed Katie had been emotionally cheating on him with John -- which Katie and John have both firmly denied in the press.
Katie and John eventually moved in together in San Diego, but they announced their split in June 2022.
Katie just confirmed that John is the one who dumped her, and she explained why he left on Kaitlyn's podcast.
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