Nick Viall knows a thing or two about showing up late to a season of The Bachelorette — and he’s predicting Blake Moynes will have success on Katie Thurston’s season despite his late arrival.
“Blake is going to get crap, obviously, for someone who fell in love with Clare [Crawley] without validation, fell in love with Tayshia [Adams] without validation. So, when he’s [saying], ‘I’m in love with Katie,’ it’s fair to question [it],” the former Bachelor said on Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast about the season 16 contestant. “I don’t question that he believes what he says. I just kind of question, like, ‘Do you just kind of love hard, bro?’”
While Nick noted that he doesn’t “know the back story” of how Blake ended up on Katie’s season, she exclusively told Us that they chatted via DMs before season 17 started.
“It sounds like there was some dialogue between Katie and Blake. I don’t think it was to the degree that it was with [me and] Kaitlyn,” Nick continued, referring to his pre-show relationship with season 11 star Kaitlyn Bristowe. “[For us], it was like a pretty intense, you know, two months of dialogue, but I do think Blake will go far.”
While ABC teased Blake’s appearance in the promo for the June 28 episode, the “Viall Files” host told Us that Katie informed him about the Canadian’s arrival when Nick was at the New Mexico resort to film Monday’s group date.
“I think Katie had met him. I don’t know for sure. She had told me about it and it was filmed. They didn’t use it, but it was filmed,” Nick explained, adding that there’s “so many moving pieces” on The Bachelorette and too much to cover from the group date — including Katie’s story about an experience with sexual assault — to introduce Blake.
“The stuff that came out on the date with Thomas [Jacobs] and obviously Katie’s story, you want to give that its rightful air and oxygen and its space for Katie to be heard. And I think that was really brave of her,” Nick told Us. “So it doesn’t shock me with all that going on that we’ll see Blake in next episode.”
While some Bachelor alums don’t have success when trying to crash the season, Nick was Kaitlyn’s runner-up. He recalled the men on her season knowing he was a threat shortly after his arrival.
“I’ll be interesting to see how the guys respond to him,” Nick said, noting that Aaron Clancy will likely take issue as he has been involved in all of this season’s drama. “That’s already pretty predictable. But the Greg‘s of it all, right? Because what was interesting about me showing up for Kaitlyn’s season is just how much Shawn [Booth] hated me. … If I didn’t show up, I mean, it would have, like, the season was over and that made it interesting because Shawn was very much the front-runner and Shawn just hated me. But will Greg hate Blake? Will Michael hate Blake? [Will] Connor? … I just don’t see those guys being like Shawn.”
For Nick’s complete recap of Monday’s episode, listen to Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast.