As Katie Thurston and John Hersey’s relationship continues to go strong, Blake Moynes is reflecting on his time with the Bachelorette and their sudden split.
“I say, ‘I’m good,’ only because it’s been time,” the 31-year-old wildlife manager told Ben Higgins on the Thursday, February 10, episode of the “Almost Famous” podcast. “Time heals a lot of things and time just allows you to kind of reflect and just move past the mayhem that’s happened.”
Bachelor Nation watched Katie, 31, accept a proposal from Blake during the August 2021 finale of season 17 of The Bachelorette. At the time, viewers were questioning whether the lead was over Greg Grippo, who quit after a tense hometown date. By October 2021, the pair called off their engagement and less than one month later, Katie announced she started dating fellow season 17 contestant John, whom she had remained close to since sending him home on week 2.
“We talked very cordially after we announced the breakup, and we were really good with that. And then, obviously, all the other stuff happened. Since then, we have not spoke,” Blake told the season 20 Bachelor on Thursday. “But she has reached out to me. I just have not been [in] the place yet to respond to it. Especially the time that it all kind of was unraveling, I didn’t want to respond in a place of emotion and right in the heat of things when I haven’t had time to reflect.”
Blake added that “there will be a time where I can respond” to Katie’s outreach.
“But there’s no point in doing it where I’m going to speak out of emotion,” he continued. “She’s happy. She made the decision — although, you know, I didn’t like it — she made the best decision for her, just like I would make the best decision for me. It didn’t play out the way I wanted it to, and it could have probably been handled different, but I have no time for a grudge.”
Katie made waves in November 2021 when she announced her romance with John through a Taylor Swift challenge, assigning songs to her exes. While Blake got “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” the bartender was assigned “Begin Again.”
“I do think she’s a good person and things played out not in a great way,” the Canada native said. “I will respond to her, and we will make up, 100 percent, one day. It’s, just, not yet when it still feels kind of fresh. … There will always be a little piece that won’t heal until I have that wrap up conversation with her. … It will come. I know it will — because we’re both mature. It’ll get there, it’s just not yet. I think I should be the one to determine that just because I was on the wrong end of it.”
Blake concluded that a conversation with Katie is not a “priority” for him at the moment. “That conversation is sitting at the bottom of my to-do list right now,” he said. “I know it’d be better for both of us if we do [talk]. It definitely would be for me.”
Scroll through for more post-split confessions from Blake: