All is fair in love and roses? Not so fast. Katie Thurston and Greg Grippo’s Bachelorette breakup has fans and former contestants split.
Things went awry for the 30-year-old former banking manager and the 28-year-old New Jersey native during the Monday, August 2, episode of The Bachelorette after he opened up about the loss of his father during his hometown date, telling Katie that she “fills” the hole in his heart for the first time since the family death.
“I think you’re beautiful and I think you’re great. I didn’t know I was going to fall in love with you. I didn’t know that. And I am in love with you. You just make me the happiest I’ve ever been. I see it with you. This is real to me,” Greg said. “I haven’t been this vulnerable with anybody in my life. I don’t know what else to show you at this point or what else to tell you at this point. I know in my heart I’m not going to have any regrets after this. I’m not going to get down on one knee twice. It’s a one-deal thing for me.”
Katie, who previously told ABC cameras that she was waiting to say “I love you” to one contestant until the end of the journey, left Greg confused when she longingly stared at him. When he asked what she was thinking, Katie replied, “I just love looking at you.”
The awkward moment led Greg to doubt his feelings for Katie, catching her off guard. “I’ve never felt like you’ve wanted to give up until right now,” she said, which upset him further.
After ending the night on rocky terms, Greg showed up at Katie’s hotel room the following day.
“I told my mom that you were The One. I was telling my whole entire family that. I truly felt that in my heart and wanted to express that to you. I expressed that I do love you. I felt like I was telling that to a stranger. I don’t know why. This whole entire time has felt like Katie to me, and that night, I was thinking that I was expressing my love to my future wife, and you didn’t even feel it,” he said. “You just completely dismissed it in my eyes.”
When Katie pointed out that she told Greg’s family that he was getting a rose this week, he snapped.
“I don’t give a f—k about the rose. I was just telling you that you filled a hole in my heart,” he said. “I’ve never given up on you. I’ve fought so hard for you here … As much as it hurts me, I’ve reached my breaking point with this. I gave you everything. I really hope you find something.”
Katie, who noted she “can’t even comprehend” Greg’s point, was very emotional as she questioned what she did wrong. In the end, he decided to quit the show.
“I’m, like, shaking. I don’t even know what to say. I’m shocked. I want to leave, if I’m being completely honest, because I didn’t see any of this happening,” she told Greg before he stormed out. “I really don’t know what to say, because I have given you everything. I’ve been nothing but honest with you the entire time, and I felt nothing but confidence in us the entire time until that very final moment of that night.”
While Katie made a point to sign off Twitter before her breakup with Greg started airing, she later took to Instagram to seemingly make her feelings known, sharing a post that reads, “So you want to talk about gaslighting.”
The Instagram slideshow included a definition for the term, referring to gaslighting as “a form of emotional abuse or psychological manipulation involving distorting the truth in order to confuse or instill doubt in another person to the point they question their own sanity or reality.” The account also listed lying, discrediting, deflecting blame, minimizing, shifting blame and denying wrongdoing as signs of gaslighting.
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The three-hour season 17 finale of The Bachelorette airs on ABC Monday, August 9, at 8 p.m. ET. Scroll through for Bachelor Nation’s differing takes on Katie and Greg’s split:
