Kristina Had An Understandable Reason For Waiting Until 'BiP' To Confront Blake

Adding yet another layer to what Chris Harrison might call one, or, well, two of the most dramatic offscreen hookups in Bachelor Nation history, Bachelor in Paradise's Kristina clarified the Blake drama timeline in an Aug. 7 tweet. Sharing a screenshot of a Twitter exchange she'd had with a fan earlier the same day, the Russian-born dental hygienist offered "some clarity for y'all." As seen in the photo, BiP fan @g_gruiz had posted that "Blake had a point" and that Kristina could have reached out to him off camera, instead of waiting "to call him out on his BS" on national television, prompting her to respond:

"No, you’re right, I didn’t have to but what you also don’t know is that Blake only told me about his night with caelynn after I told him I signed my contract to come to paradise... that was 3 days before I had to fly down.. not going to apologize for needing time to process"

If your head is spinning, you're not alone. Even for many Bachelor Nation devotees, all the pre-BiP Blake drama is super messy and difficult to keep track of, so here's an attempt to untangle what went down.

When the ABC summer reality dating competition spinoff debuted on Aug. 5, fans learned of a super-complicated love triangle between Blake, Kristina, and fellow BiP competitor Caelynn that had sprung up months earlier. During the episode, Caelynn explained to bartender Wells that Blake admitted to her that he slept with Kristina one night before he slept with her at April's Stagecoach Festival in Indio, California. Caelynn also claimed she caught Blake — who she said had been flirting with Tayshia earlier the same day — DM'ing Hannah G while they were in bed together.

“He calls me two weeks ago and he’s like, ‘No one can know about us. We’ve got to lie. We’ve got to lie our asses off in Paradise,’" Caelynn added in her conversation with Wells.

Enter Kristina, who Blake did tell his castmates he'd had a fling with six or seven months prior. According to Blake, their relationship "ended very mutually" and both agreed to remain friends. As Kristina revealed during a confrontation with Blake on the BiP episode, however, finding out he had slept with Caelynn hurt her feelings and was a "slap in the face."

So during the second part of ABC's two-night BiP premiere, Kristina's mission was to make Blake her "b*tch" during a beach date. After Kristina addressed the elephant in the room, Blake asserted that he values their friendship, respects Kristina, and is willing to accept the consequences of his actions. Even so, the heated exchange ended with Blake insisting he'd done nothing wrong and Kristina telling him to "be a man."

With accusations flying all over the place on the show that the runner-up on Becca's Bachelorette season had done everything from ghosting and trying to silence Caelynn to calling her a "mistake," Blake posted a lengthy explanation and apology on Instagram. Copping to "a lot of mistakes," Blake defended himself from several of the claims Caelynn made in the first two BiP episodes. Blake also said he had no other choice but to post screenshots of text messages between him and Caelynn in his IG Stories.

"This is the last thing I wanted to do, but my name and character are being attacked. My name is all I really have," he wrote. "Most of all, it is the only real way to prove that what is being said by Caelynn and the story that is being shown is far from the truth. ... Unfortunately this is the only way to have a voice, since I very much feel backed into a corner."

Ironically enough, Kristina commented on Blake's post: "Speak your truth, no one can take that away from you."

Caelynn's response to Blake, however, wasn't quite as supportive. In a lengthy IG caption of her own, an "absolutely mortified" Caelynn claimed that "things got taken out of context on the show" and that the "5 am text exchange" Blake posted was "not an accurate representation" of their past relationship.

"It’s clear to me that Blake and I had different ideas of what our “relationship” was," she wrote. "We started talking months before Stagecoach. We FaceTimed everyday and talked about potentially skipping paradise to be together. When I say he ghosted me, it was after those few months of us talking. It was my understanding there was no one else and I thought we were on the same page."

Adding that she "did not go on a show to ruin someone’s character," Caelynn also noted that she has long since moved on from the drama with Blake.

Whether or not she's gotten past it, there's sure plenty more to play out on TV. After all, summer may be winding down, but BiP is just starting to heat up.