When The Bachelorette star Kaitlyn Bristowe eliminated Joe Bailey and Jared Haibon, the two men had very different reactions to being brokenhearted. Bailey got mad, while Haibon was understanding and still appreciative.
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In the latest The Bachelorette episode, Bristowe dumped Bailey in the middle of a group date in Ireland. Right after Bailey confessed he was in love with the show's star, Bristowe realized she wasn't on the same page and therefore tried to let him down gently. Bailey however shut down, telling the Bachelorette to have fun and repeating "it's cool." Bristowe fought for a better goodbye, but Bailey insisted he had "sh-t to say" to her.
"Joe is someone who can keep up with me, appreciates my humor and also has a soft side. But when Joe told me that he was in love with me, I knew in that moment that the feelings weren't mutual. My heart was in a different place than Joe's. And thinking of my chat with Chris Harrison, I knew that, if I wasn't feeling it in those moments, I had to say goodbye. It may not have seemed fair to Joe at the time, but I knew that was the right thing to do," Bristowe wrote in her People blog.
"Joe's reaction was a bit cold, but I understood it. If you tell someone you love them and those words aren't returned, you don't know what to say or do. You're almost in shock. But I didn't want Joe to shut down and say things like 'it's cool' because I know it's not. I mean he called me man: 'No worries, man.' It just hurt a bit because I did care about him. I just knew Joe wasn't the one for me."
In his own Yahoo! TV blog, The Bachelorette host Chris Harrison agreed with Bristowe about Bailey's departure.
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"Joe's reaction may get some negative response from fans, and I understand that, but I also understand where he was coming from. Joe just professed his love to a woman and was then rejected. His heart and pride were hurting and that was his immediate reaction. He was cold and distant. I get that in the moment. I also understand Kaitlyn wanting to end it on better terms," Harrison wrote.
"At the end of the day this is a breakup, and those don't always go so nice. Unless of course you're breaking up with a guy like Jared. Jared took his departure far better. He's a truly classy guy and everybody on our crew loved having him around. Now we just need to work on his facial 'hair.'"
Bristowe said her choice to send Haibon home was not easy.
"My nugget Jared. We got along so well and never had any bumps in the road. Our relationship kept moving forward, and that made it hard to let him go. We had just shared such a great day together, and we had no reservations. Nothing was really missing between us. It just wasn't where the other relationships I had were," the Bachelorette explained in her blog.
"But Jared was a gentleman the whole time, even offering his jacket as we said goodbye. Watching now what Jared said in the limo -- that he knew what we had was real -- makes me smile. I'm glad he knew that was real, because it was, and I'm going to miss him too. He was a gentleman from the start, right to the very end."
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The Bachelorette's next episode, which will feature Bristowe's overnight dates with Shawn Booth and Ben Higgins, airs Monday, July 13 at 8PM ET/PT on ABC.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski