Reality TV
Jess Knows Where She “Went Wrong” On Bachelor In Paradise
She still found love, though.
Heading into the Bachelor in Paradise Season 9 finale, Jess Girod wanted to be “hopelessly in love.” Despite her early coupling with Blake Moynes, she realized, “That’s not where I’m at.”
Blake was on the same page, leading the couple to break up in BiP’s penultimate episode. “He was all in, and I wasn’t,” Jess explained to producers. Though Blake immediately left Paradise, Jess stuck around and eventually offered her rose to Tanner Courtad, whom she wanted “to get to know” better.
With such little time left, though, it’s unlikely Jess will leave BiP in a relationship, but she’s been busy since filming wrapped anyway.
Bachelor Nation Besties
Even if Jess didn’t find romance on the beach, she certainly left with love — of the platonic variety. ABC reportedly filmed BiP Season 9 in Mexico from June 6 to roughly June 23, and Jess returned to Instagram about a month later to share snaps from a Miami trip with Charity Lawson, Kat Izzo, Mercedes Northup, and Kylee Russell.
In October, she reunited with her BiP friends in North Carolina, joking she “made it to hometowns.” (Kylee commented, “The family loved you.”) More recently, she spent a weekend in Tulum, Mexico, with Kylee, Mercedes, Kaity Biggar, Ariel Frenkel, Gabi Elnicki, and Davia Bunch, sharing photos and video from the getaway on Nov. 20.
Professionally, Jess works remotely as an e-commerce coordinator for a women’s clothing brand based in Tallahassee, Florida. According to her LinkedIn, she’s now based in the San Diego area.
Breaking Down BiP
Prior to the BiP finale, Jess hinted at what went wrong with Blake on the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast in November. She was never quite sure if they “were the best match” — partly because he lives in a different country, and partly because he “travels a lot.”
That made Jess feel “very scared,” leading to a communication breakdown with Blake. “I didn’t want to leave in a public relationship for it to then not work,” she explained. “I was taking it as seriously as possible and being very logical, and I was having a lot of internal doubt and freaking myself out. That’s where I went wrong. I probably should’ve communicated that a little bit more.”
The fact that filming took place over just a few weeks likely didn’t help, either. “I take things very slow in the real world. I don’t just jump into things,” Jess added. “So I was doing exactly what I would do off camera, and that doesn’t translate well when you have a clock ticking.”
Now that Jess is back in the “real world,” she no longer has a deadline to fall “hopelessly in love.”
