The Bachelorette star Katie Thurston has fired back at critics who think she's still not over Greg Grippo based on her scorned reaction to him on After the Final Rose.
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Viewers watched a confrontational and heated conversation on The Bachelorette: After the Final Rose between Katie and Greg, who were shown reuniting and speaking for the first time after their split post-hometown dates on the show's seventeenth season.
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Katie called Greg "a liar" and accused him of gaslighting her and not behaving like a man during their breakup conversation. She also claimed Greg was acting during her season because she didn't believe he truly loved her or was ready for an engagement.
Because Katie was so fired up about Greg dumping her months after the fact, fans questioned if Katie is still hung up on him despite being engaged to The Bachelorette winner Blake Moynes.
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"It doesn't make sense to forget how someone mistreated me and how it made me feel just because I'm very happy and in love," Katie, 30, explained to Us Weekly in a joint video interview with Blake.
"You have the opportunity to speak to someone who hurt you, you're going to do it and you don't really get that opportunity sometimes in real life when an ex does mistreat you."
Katie suggested her emotions regarding her breakup with Greg were pretty fresh because she and Blake had just watched that episode together.
"I was very honest with Blake leading into every single episode, and we watched some of them together. [Greg's exit episode] we actually got to watch a few weeks ago and we watched it right before going into filming After the Final Rose," Katie revealed.
"So there was a lot of emotions that I felt that I didn't feel in the moment with Greg."
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Katie said she used After the Final Rose as an opportunity to speak her mind and get a lot off her chest.
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"What people need to remember is After the Final Rose is about kind of speaking your own truth and getting it out there for that final closure," Katie said.
"And really that's what Greg and I both were able to do. And I think we're ready to just close that door forever and move forward."
"You can be happy and in love in your relationship," she added, "but still be upset with how someone treated you in the past and you want to speak on that."
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As for Blake, 31, he apparently didn't feel blindsided at all by Katie's strong reaction to Greg once the pair reunited.
Blake said Katie actually "warned" him ahead of time about "everything" with Greg, "down to the littlest sentence" that might have made Blake feel "upset or sad."
"She was very blunt and honest about everything, so going into that, there were no surprises at all," Blake shared with Us.
"Secondly it's very important to be understanding and empathetic of what she is going through, right? It's easy to be like, 'Well, why would you say that? What about me? I was there.'"
Blake said most people probably would have reacted a similar way had they gotten dumped twice in a matter of a week.
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"[Michael Allio] had left, Greg was leaving. And so I could see why she was doing and saying what she needed to, things were breaking down," Blake said.
"And so going into After the Final Rose, I had watched the episode and I had a feeling as to how she would probably go about it -- because I was sure that she was probably going to see in a different lens after watching it back instead of being in the moment."
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Blake continued, "It went how I thought it was going to, I knew she was going to speak her mind, [which is] one of the things I do love about her. And so she did just that."
In fact, Blake admitted he was actually "laughing" backstage while watching Katie put Greg in his place on After the Final Rose.
"I was just kind of laughing about it, being like, 'I love this... You're speaking and standing up for yourself and just [being] raw.' And I love that," Blake gushed.
Katie said on After the Final Rose it was disappointing how Greg had spoken to her when she was just trying to understand his frustrations and communicate in order to save their relationship.
"I tried everything I can to make him stay. I am literally on my f-cking knees, begging this man to stay, and he's telling me it's not good enough. I never saw that side of him and I was very caught off-guard. I was like, 'Who are you? Do I even know Greg?'" Katie lamented.
She added, "To watch him talk down to me and twice walk away from me, that's not a man."
Katie told Greg, who broke up with the Bachelorette because he didn't feel validated or reassured after pouring his heart out to her, that he must not know what love means considering he left right when times got tough.
Katie accused Greg of "using" her to get "experience and exposure" on TV, adding, "Dare I say acting practice -- at my expense."
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"Listen, I hate to break it to you -- as much as I was wish I was [acting], I'm not Meryl Streep," countered Greg, who reportedly attended acting school in New York City prior to his The Bachelorette stint.
Greg insisted to Katie that he had every intention of proposing marriage to her but her "rose" and "frontrunner" terminology when discussing their future together scared him.
"I felt like you were playing The Bachelorette role with me instead of just being Katie," Greg explained, adding that Katie withheld some emotions from him and was unable to vocalize how she truly felt in attempt to save her "I love you" until the end.
"Just as much as you wanted somebody to be certain about you, I also wanted that on my end."
Greg argued that a relationship is "a two-way street" and he had expected Katie to express her feelings for him in some manner.
"Yes, I know you're the Bachelorette, but still, that doesn't put you any higher in this relationship and me any lower," Greg said.
"I emptied my heart out to you on that couch, and all I got was just a pat on the back after it. I just wanted something real at the end of the day. I wanted it to be a two-way street, especially at that point in time."
Katie concluded that Greg is simply not her "person" and all the feelings she had for him left when he left the show.
After the pair coldly wished each other "nothing but the best," Katie shared how she's madly in love with Blake and completely happy in her new post-show relationship.
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