Bachelorette: Katie Thurston & BF John Hersey Kiss Under Mistletoe
The Bachelorette alums Katie Thurston and John Hersey aren't afraid of showing off a little PDA. The pair met on Katie's season, where she initially got engaged to Blake Moynes. John wasn't on the show for too long and got eliminated in week 2, but ended up forging a close friendship with Katie after the show. The two are now a couple, recently going public with their relationship following Katie's split with Blake. One sign that pointed to Katie and John being together was the song she chose for him during her "12 days of messiness" Instagram Stories about her exes on the show. The series featured a Taylor Swift song to go with each of her exes, and she ended it off with "Begin Again" for John. The song, which is about finding love after a hard breakup, got fans thinking that the two were an item.
Even though Katie and John seem happy together, not everyone is happy for them. Katie's ex-fiancé, Blake, accused her of cheating on him emotionally. On an episode of the Talking It Out podcast, Blake opened up about the situation. While he doesn't believe Katie ever cheated on him physically, he thinks that the emotional relationship that Katie has with John began while she was still engaged to him. Blake worried that he wasn't giving her what she needed emotionally, so she fulfilled the need with somebody else. Especially with how fast Katie and John's relationship moved after their breakup, Blake believes that's what happened.
Katie and John attended Stephen Lovegrove's First Noelle Ball in San Diego, where they shared a kiss underneath the mistletoe. In the sweet photo, Katie is in a black sequined dress and John is in a black suit. The couple appears to be dancing while they kiss. Katie also posted a selfie with John before heading to the event, as well as a video of her kissing her new beau on the red carpet. "When it's suddenly snowing in San Diego and your whole mood changes," Katie captioned a video from the holiday event (via People). "Thank you @drlovegrove for the event of the year!"
John also cleared up the cheating rumors on Reddit. He reached out to fans through the website and revealed that he and Katie became close friends over the last half of 2021. While they were close, it was never in a romantic way while she was with Blake. In fact, according to John, they never thought their friendship would turn into a romance. Although their relationship progressed quickly after Katie and Blake ended things, there was never any cheating that went down.
Although fans can sympathize with how Blake feels since his and Katie's relationship just ended, Katie and John do seem happy together. Blake was also a contestant on Clare Crawley and Tayshia Adams' dual season, so there's a possibility he'd be open to joining another season of The Bachelorette. Whether or not fans would want to see that, it could be interesting. At least Katie's Bachelorette journey ended happily.
Source: People