The Bachelorette couple Katie Thurston and John Hersey have had a fast-moving romance, and now they’ve revealed if an engagement is on the horizon and how they feel about it.
|
ADVERTISEMENT |
The Season 17 The Bachelorette star and John, whom Katie eliminated during Week 2 of her journey, met one year ago while filming the show, but they didn’t go Instagram official with their relationship until late November 2021.
RELATED LINK: ‘THE BACHELOR’ FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
While the couple just revealed they’re living together at Katie’s apartment in San Diego, CA, and have gushed about being madly in love for months, Katie has confirmed they’re just dating and having fun.
“We are not engaged,” Katie said during a recent appearance with John on Kaitlyn Bristowe’s “Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe” podcast.
“Wait, but you proposed to me with a Taco Bell hot-sauce packet,” John joked.
“I don’t know if that counts,” Katie replied.
“I am waiting for my ring!” John teased.
Katie then chimed in with her truth, explaining, “Look, the last thing I need right now is any kind of engagement. I am very, very content with where I’m at in my relationship with John.”
And despite coming off a show like The Bachelorette, when a lead is pretty much expected to get engaged during the finale, Katie said she doesn’t feel any pressure for John to put a ring on it in the near future.
“I don’t think there’s pressure. But I definitely think people ask it a lot,” Katie told Kaitlyn on whether or not she’s going to get engaged.
“Because they are so used to a very quick engagement. So in their minds, they’re like, ‘So when are you guys getting engaged?’ But in the normal world when you aren’t on a dating show, it’s not normal to ask that after just a few months.”
She concluded, “I don’t necessarily feel pressure at all.”
RELATED LINK: ‘THE BACHELOR’ COUPLES NOW: WHO DID ‘THE BACHELOR’ STARS AND THEIR BACHELORETTE PICKS ACTUALLY END UP MARRYING? (PHOTOS)
John said he accidentally led his followers to believe he and Katie got engaged recently because they did a photo shoot that looked like an engagement one.
“It blew up and I felt so bad, and I still feel bad,” John said of misleading fans.
“We are messy together,” Katie joked.
Katie explained that she needed to get to know John in order to fall in love with him, and she wasn’t able to do that on The Bachelorette.
Katie told Kaitlyn that John was a frontrunner at first glance since he was attractive and charming but then he came across as “robotic” and rehearsed during their first conversation on-camera.
John admitted he felt extremely nervous talking about personal things with cameras all around him, and Kaitlyn acknowledged the spark was quickly lost.
“I walked out of that room after speaking with Katie and I went, ‘I’m going home,'” John confessed. “I blew it.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Katie therefore got engaged to wildlife manager Blake Moynes during her The Bachelorette season finale, which filmed in April 2021 and aired in August last year.
Katie and John went public with their romance only three short weeks after Katie and Blake announced in late October they had split and decided to end their engagement.
RELATED LINK: ‘THE BACHELORETTE’ COUPLES NOW: WHOM DID ‘THE BACHELORETTE’ STARS AND THEIR BACHELOR PICKS ULTIMATELY END UP WITH?! (PHOTOS)
Katie faced backlash for having moved on from her former fiance too quickly with a “rebound,” and Blake said on the “Talking It Out with Bachelor Nation” podcast in November that he believed Katie had been emotionally cheating on him with John — which Katie and John have both firmly denied in the press.
Katie admitted she and John considered hiding their relationship at first in fear of how Bachelor Nation might react to them.
“We were already talking about how to not be [seen and] known. But it’s also like, ‘F-ck that.’ I want to live our best life. I want to live in my happiness. I went through hell and back being on TV,” Katie said.
Katie finally determined that she owed it to herself to be in her “truest” and “happiest form.”
“At the end of the day, I was like, ‘Life is too short. I’ve gone through so much and I just want to be happy.’ And so that’s ultimately what we did; we owned our connection not knowing it would take us to this day,” Katie added.
Katie explained she didn’t want to sneak around in public with John and have people take photos of them and come up with their own narrative.
And now, the former bank marketing manager and John are still going strong and have even bought a van together so they can travel the country and explore new cities.
“John makes me want to be a better person, and he challenges me… He’s very energetic and he keeps me young. He says I have the potential to be adventurous… and he makes me want to go and try new things,” Katie shared.
For Blake’s part, he recently told Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti on their “The Ben & Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast” that he’s ready to start dating again, but only in the real world.
“I could probably talk to her and have a cordial conversation,” Blake, who initially felt blindsided by Katie and John’s romance, confirmed earlier this month.
ADVERTISEMENT
RELATED LINK: ‘THE BACHELOR’ FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
Interested in more The Bachelor news? Join our The Bachelor Facebook Group!
About The Author:
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.