The Bachelorette star Katie Thurston has admitted she's looking forward to Season 17 being over and she definitely wouldn't choose the word "fun" to describe her journey on the show.
ADVERTISEMENT
"Since the show ended, I kind of stayed home, under a rock a little bit," Katie told Variety.
"I do look forward to the finale airing so that I can move forward with my life and not have to hold back on that."
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
Katie expressed how filming The Bachelorette's seventeenth season, despite a few apparent highlights here or there, was emotionally taxing for her.
ADVERTISEMENT
"Everyone's like, 'Did you have fun?' And I just look at them and want to scream -- because it's very hard," Katie admitted.
"You're forming very strong relationships and you're breaking people's hearts and you're trying to navigate this thing in such a short time and 'fun' is not the first word I would use to describe my experience."
Katie teased several weeks ago during an appearance on Nick Viall's The Viall Files podcast that she completely got her heart broken while filming the series.
"On the season I had my heart broken! Spoiler alert!" Katie revealed.
In a preview ABC has repeatedly shown for a future The Bachelorette episode, Katie was shown crying and yelling at a camera, "I'm done! Someone book my flight home!"
ADVERTISEMENT
Nick therefore questioned, "So just to confirm, you felt legitimate heartbreak on this season? Your heart was broken?"
"You woke up the next day... and for a half a second you feel okay," he continued, "until you realize how f-cking sh-tty your existence is and your body swells up with anxiety... and you're just like, 'F-ck, my heart is broken!"
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' COUPLES NOW: WHO DID 'THE BACHELOR' STARS AND THEIR BACHELORETTE PICKS ACTUALLY END UP MARRYING? (PHOTOS)
After some back and forth, Katie said, "I get it, that's very intense and accurate -- but yes."
"That happened?" Nick asked.
ADVERTISEMENT
"Yes," Katie confirmed. "It's tough being the lead. People don't realize that. People are like, 'Did you have fun?' And I'm like, 'F-ck no, I didn't have fun!'"
Given only Justin Glaze, Blake Moynes, Greg Grippo and Michael Allio are left on Katie's season heading into hometown dates, many The Bachelorette fans assume Greg may quit the show -- even though he had promised Katie he would stick it out to the end -- or that Michael will chose to go home prematurely to be with his young son James.
Luckily, through Katie's dark times on The Bachelorette, she had the support and guidance of The Bachelorette alums Kaitlyn Bristowe and Tayshia Adams.
"To have Tayshia and Kaitlyn there to support me, it was a better outcome than I could have expected," Katie told Variety.
"I actually loved this format. I don't know how it's going to work going forward, but to be able to have previous bachelorettes helping me, I don't think anyone else could offer me the support and guidance like they could."
ADVERTISEMENT
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW: WHOM DID 'THE BACHELORETTE' STARS AND THEIR BACHELOR PICKS ULTIMATELY END UP WITH?! (PHOTOS)
Katie previously shared on the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast hosted by Becca Kufrin that the ending of her season is a "roller coaster" and "wild ride."
The Bachelorette season reportedly wrapped production sooner than producers anticipated because Katie's journey to find love ended unexpectedly early.
According to a source, The Bachelorette "went great and it wrapped a week ahead of schedule" on April 24, Us Weekly reported.
After taping The Bachelorette, Katie returned to Instagram on April 28 and hinted at how she had started "a healthy relationship."
"Can't start a healthy relationship without being healthy," Katie captioned a video of herself getting the coronavirus vaccine, hinting that she may have found lasting love on The Bachelorette this year.
Katie noted in June that she is "happy" and she's come to learn "that everything happens for a reason."
Click here to read spoilers on Katie's The Bachelorette season and find out who broke Katie's heart and whether she found true love and got engaged.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
Interested in more The Bachelor news? Join our The Bachelor Facebook Group!