The Bachelorette co-host Kaitlyn Bristowe has shared her perspective on Greg Grippo and Katie Thurston's explosive split and revealed she feels Greg let his "ego" get in the way and his behavior was "bullsh-t."
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Kaitlyn acknowledged to Click Bait co-hosts Tayshia Adams, Joe Amabile and Natasha Parker that she was "really confused" when she was consoling Katie in the bathroom because she wasn't entirely sure of what had just transpired with Greg.
After Katie met Greg's family on his hometown date, Greg expressed to the Bachelorette through tears how he was madly in love with her and wanted to propose marriage. He said Katie had filled a hole in his heart from his father's passing, but then Katie stared at him longingly and said in reply, "I just love looking at you."
The next day, Greg, appearing to be in a very confused and vulnerable state, confronted Katie in her hotel room and essentially scolded her for focusing too much on roses and the competition aspect of the show rather than on their "real" relationship and his need for some validation.
"Watching it back, could Katie have, like, been a little more, you know, reactive to him saying these things? Of course," Kaitlyn said. "But the way he responded back to that I thought was bullsh-t."
Katie tried to show how much she cared for Greg by assuring him that he'd receive a rose and he had been her "No. 1 since the beginning," but Katie's attempt to put Greg at ease only infuriated him more and worsened the situation.
Greg accused Katie of being guarded and making him feel like just "a number" on her list. He told the Bachelorette that she had made him feel "sick" and he was therefore "so done" with her and the process.
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Greg therefore stormed out of Katie's hotel room and decided to quit the show, which left Katie bawling in a bathroom and questioning if she should end The Bachelorette process early. Kaitlyn then rushed to the rescue.
"I feel like she wasn't angry at the time. She wasn't telling me, 'Oh, Greg gaslighted me,' and blah blah. She was kind of, like, 'I don't know what happened,'" Kaitlyn explained.
"And so it was interesting for me to watch it back because I think I felt bad for Greg -- until I watched it back."
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOWJoe chimed in and said, "I kind of did too! I agree. Greg seems like a nice guy, but I felt like he just hung onto it and wouldn't let it go."
Kaitlyn shared how Katie maintaining a level of secrecy about her feelings so late in the game is just the nature of The Bachelorette and Greg shouldn't have expected so much out of her.
"There are lists, there are roses, there are placements," Kaitlyn acknowledged.
Joe agreed, "This isn't regular life; this is the show."
And Kaitlyn added, "She gave him so much reassurance the whole show!"
Tayshia -- who co-hosts The Bachelorette's seventeenth season with Kaitlyn -- saw it differently, however.
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Tayshia pointed out how Greg had opened up about a very personal matter, feeling whole again after the death of his father, and was so vulnerable with Katie, only to have the Bachelorette essentially dismiss his feelings.
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Natasha recalled how Katie kept telling Greg, "I don't know what you want me to say," which Natasha apparently found annoying.
"She should have just grabbed [Greg's] face and said, 'I hear you, literally!'" Kaitlyn said in agreeance.
And Natasha added, "He gave her everything... and she gave him nothing!"
Kaitlyn suggested maybe something shifted in Katie after her hometown dates with Justin Glaze and Blake Moynes when she thought, "Maybe Greg's not my guy," and so she didn't know how to react to Greg's declaration of love in order to protect her other relationships.
Tayshia, who starred on The Bachelorette's sixteenth season last year, said she and Kaitlyn -- The Bachelorette's Season 11 star -- have both been in the position where they just listened to a man pour his heart out and failed to comfort him because they were convinced that guy was not going to be their "person."
"I think [Greg] felt that... I think he knew in that moment it wasn't him," Natasha pointed out.
And Joe reasoned, "If it's real love, I just don't think it was enough to call it quits off of that."
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Kaitlyn agreed and shared, "That's The Bachelorette. She can't really fully reciprocate it if she can't validate him until the end. And I think he just wanted to quit before he got fired."
Kaitlyn went on to slam Greg by saying, "I think his ego was so hurt in that moment that he was like, 'I'm gonna just flip this sh-t and get out of here, otherwise it's not me.'"
Kaitlyn said it's possible Katie had been fully invested in Blake or Justin while still hitting "rock bottom" over Greg's choice to leave her.
Katie cried to Kaitlyn in the bathroom about how she had lost all her confidence and felt "destroyed" after both Greg and Michael Allio had chosen to quit the show prematurely.
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"That's why it's so cool to have us there. She really was like, 'I feel so alone. Nobody can understand this, I'm going home. I don't even care what that means for my contract. I don't care what that means for the other two guys,'" Kaitlyn explained.
"She, in that moment, was so done. And to hear someone else be, like, 'I had that exact moment. I wanted to quit. I told everybody I was quitting.' They didn't show it, but I said all of those things."
Kaitlyn continued, "And trust me, when you get to the end, even if you don't pick anyone [or you do], you're going to be, like, 'Whoa, that happened for a reason. Just battle through this. This is the worst part. You're almost done.'"
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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."
Katie's Instagram Stories post linked to a "Gaslighting" slideshow post on another Instagram account that includes a definition for gaslighting.
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 emotionally manipulating Katie.
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 and Blake.
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
