Katie Thurston Highlighted A Hard Bachelorette Truth In An IG Clapback

From fantasy suites to (not) being here for the right reasons, there’s a franchise-wide vocabulary you start to internalize after watching a season or two of The Bachelor or The Bachelorette. Another key concept from the so-called dictionary? The process, or the journey — aka, the central premise of Bachelor Nation that both viewers and participants are tasked with buying into. Basically, do you trust that the setup of the show (wacky limo arrivals, overnight dates, millions of viewers) can lead to love?

In a March 13 Instagram story, former Bachelorette Katie Thurston acknowledged the inherently game-y nature of the franchise... but didn’t rule out the process altogether. It all started when a viewer questioned Katie for sending home John Hersey and getting engaged to Blake Moynes during her season, only to break things off and start dating Hersey after the show. “It’s like you lied and use [Blake],” they wrote. Thurston, though, set the record straight in a very honest way: by highlighting the very small amount of time couples are actually able to spend together.

“It’s like you don’t get how the show works,” she wrote. “I met John in the real world and knew him for months. I knew Blake for maybe… 24ish+ hours before we got engaged. It’s a gamble and I lost the bet. It happens.”

The clapback comes days after Thurston shared some very cute couple’s photos with Hersey on the beach. “A year ago I’d never believe I would be right here in these moments with you,” she wrote in the caption of the March 10 post. He commented, “That’s because you’d just sent me home.” OK, fair!

Thurston and Moynes were engaged on The Bachelorette, after a bit of an unorthodox coupling — he joined the show late but had communicated with her beforehand. They stayed together until October 2021, as announced via shared posts on their respective Instagram accounts. “We are so grateful for the moments we shared together and the entire journey that has unfolded this year,” they wrote, “but we ultimately have concluded that we are not compatible as life partners, and it is the most caring choice for both of us to move forward independently.”

Despite the amicable statement, there was drama after Thurston and Hersey coupled up. Moynes wondered if she had been “in some sense emotionally cheating” during a November interview with Bachelor Nation’s Mike Johnson and Bryan Abasolo on their Talking It Out podcast. The backlash led Hersey to post an open letter on Reddit just days later, in which he insisted that “there was no wrongdoing prior to the end of their engagement.”

Critics may still have occasional complaints, but Thurston and Hersey seem happy with their unexpected love story nonetheless.