Greg Grippo talked about loving Katie and her subsequent romances; Credits: Stylecaster

Reality shows have a knack of being a bit too scripted always, and while there is always added drama and scripted scenes, the shows do need to maintain a sense of organicness to remain authentic and 'real.' 

However, just recently, the Bachelor nation star Greg Grippo accused the reality TV show of having become a tad too scripted. Hence, the star quit "The Bachelorette" series starring Katie Thurston. 

Now that Michelle Young is nearing the finale of her season, Greg Grippo chose to speak up about his own experience from the previous season of the show, where Katie Thurston was the eligible bachelorette all the suitors pined after. Grippo was one of the most promising suitors Katie Thurston received that season. 

And yet, the star chose to leave the dating show. He later shared, “It was a really tough decision to leave. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to, you know, choose for myself. It was tough, especially after hearing everyone saying like, ‘Oh, I was acting, or I ran away when it got too serious.'”

He added during the December 19, Sunday podcast of the show, "We Met at Acme," saying, “I mean, for me, I’m like, ‘What if she said I love you back, guys?’ Like, I couldn’t leave then, you know, I would have known then that this is gonna be my wife, I wouldn’t have left."

Greg had decided to end things with Katie when she had already managed to reach the final three contestants during her season. However, Greg was far too serious for her and could not play things by the rules of the show and wanted it to be 'natural.'

He had shared, “It felt, like, a little too scripted and felt like, ‘Alright, we need to play by’ — I had no problem going into, like, the fantasy suite and there being two other guys there. I wasn’t looking for the show to end. I wasn’t at all. I wanted us to communicate on a mutual level in those moments.”

While the star could have appreciated a bit more organic turn of things, Greg does understand that despite being a reality dating show, things need to work in a certain way on-air for The Bachelor and The Bachelorette series. Even though Katie had chosen him to be one of her final threes, the TV personality felt a lack of "mutual love" from the lead lady at the time.  

“This is also the rest of my life. And if this is going to be the person I marry, I want it to be completely real. And, like, yeah, I want to show my family after and be like, ‘Look that we accomplished, look at what we went through.’” But coming out of a dating show, expecting such a life was not realistic, and Greg admitted, “That’s one of the hardest things, I feel like, to make it out of the mud with someone, you know, on that damn dating show.”

He was also smart enough to realize that Katie had better feelings for Blake Moynes, though they ended up calling off their engagement later. At the time, he had said, “I like to think on my end the feelings that we had were real, but I just truly believe that she had stronger feelings for Blake, who ended up getting engaged to her after."

Still, he did want to know if Katie had found her "The One." He said, "I mean, I was even calling producers after, I was DMing, like, Kaitlyn Bristowe — nobody was answering me — but I was like, ‘Is she with him? Did they end up together? Is she coming back to New Jersey?’” He still nurtured hope for them, as he recalled, saying, “I was calling producers left and right. I was also telling my family, I’m like, ‘Guys, I think there’s a better chance than not because let me tell you. It’s like very real between us.’”

But when it is about keeping things real, Katie shared that she felt that she was being gaslighted by Greg as she put it in her After the Final Rose episode in August. However, Greg was not familiar with the term. 

He revealed that the criticism really brought him down, and he couldn't leave his bed for 10 days. He added, “I felt like people were tossing around that word. … I’m, like, truly trying to understand what people were trying to say like, you know, "really manipulating her mindset' — and that’s the furthest thing from what I was trying to do. Not even a sliver of my intention was to gaslight her at all.”

Unfortunately enough, as this is, after all, real life, even though the stars spent a chunk of it on a reality TV dating show, there was no happy ending for Katie and Blake and even her and Greg. When she finally split with Blake, people asked Greg if he and Katie were planning to get together. But the star said, “That chapter’s closed. I don’t mean that in any harsh way. But just, I’m just at another point in my life. And I don’t think we’re right for each other anyway.” 

Katie broke off the engagement with Blake and is now together with John; Credits: Page Six

Katie is now together with John Hersey, a contestant from her show who was eliminated in the second week of the competition.