Things are always changing in Bachelor Nation, but Blake Moynes isn’t afraid to admit that he can’t believe it’s been a year since his whirlwind engagement to Katie Thurston ended.
“In some way, it kind of still feels like yesterday,” the 31-year-old Bachelorette alum exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting SITKA Studio’s collaboration for conservation with Martin Guitar and Thomas Rhett. “And I think only because time off [of] the actual show and television is one thing, but when things continue to kind of spiral off that and it’s six months later — all that stuff kind of happened after the actual finale of the show — that it kind of keeps up with you in a way. You’re still getting tagged along on the way — memes and this — that makes you feel like you never got out of it in a really weird way.”
He added with a laugh, “So I remember it like yesterday. It’s one that I’d like to now forget — just in the way that it all kind of played out. But it has been a year and it does not feel like that at all.”
News broke in October 2021 that Moynes and Thurston ended their relationship after their proposal aired in August 2021. She went on to date season 17 contestant John Hersey for several months before their split in June.
“I like to just give people all my trust and then, you know, if they break it, they break it. I think that [now] I’m more veering on the side of making people earn trust,” Moynes told Us when asked what he’s learned from the past year. “I think [that’s] the way that I’m starting to go with things. … I feel like I’ve been let down [in] a lot of situations, both in relationships, [and in] a lot of different categories. And so [over] the last year, that’s kind of my biggest takeaway is to make people earn their trust and stop just giving it away.”
Earlier this month, Thurston reflected on how “so much change has happened in the last year,” writing via Instagram Stories: “Crazy to reflect on all that has happened in 12 short months. I was engaged at the time. I left WA to start a new life in San Diego. Quit my job. … I’m tired. Really tired. Never fully recovered from my experiences. Lost a part of me that I continue to search for. Healing every day.”
On Monday, October 10, she added during an Instagram Q&A that she would do things “differently” if she could “go back in time and redo” season 17 of The Bachelorette “given what [she] now knows behind the scenes.” She added that she wouldn’t be the Bachelorette, again, however.
Moynes, for his part, isn’t interested in dating on reality TV either.
“I never say never, but I would say unlikely on the dating show aspect of things. There’s some other projects I’m working on [that are] wildlife-related, but for the most part, dating, I think I’ll keep that to the real world,” he explained.
One of the current wildlife projects that caught Moynes’ attention is SITKA auctioning off one of Rhett’s customized guitars from his Bring the Bar to You tour, which he attended with fellow Bachelorette alum Blake Horstmann. The money raised by the sale of this guitar will be used to encourage a national collaboration with ongoing projects to establish a continent-wide study of Mallard ducks. SITKA will match auction bids up to $50,000 to help further fund these efforts.
“SITKA Gear is very conservation oriented. And when it comes to waterfowl research and specifically Mallard ducks, which is a species they’re focusing on, they want to try with the funds raised [to learn] where they’re going, their migration powers. This is a duck that’s found all over the world — the widest spread species of duck in the world. It’s the one that you probably see the most often with the green head,” Moynes explained. “You probably fed it bread off your dock. … Every single type of species is important in our ecosystems. Ducks are one of them. I think it’s something that people don’t really think about too often. We focus on bigger species, but it’s cool to see something that’s focused specifically on ducks.”
Fans can bid on the guitar here.
