Reflecting on the experience, Kaitlyn shared how “the benefit of hindsight” showed her that Chris’ silence had “nothing to do with me.”
“I was not thinking about what you could be going through,” Kaitlyn continued. “It wasn’t about me, you were going through so much at that time.”
Acknowledging that Chris “probably didn’t even know” what to say to her at that time, Kaitlyn added, “You’re not like me. You react with logic. I react with emotion.”
As for Chris, he noted how he just wanted a friend to check up on him at the time. Describing himself as a “father figure” to many of the people he met while hosting The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, Chris said, “This time, I needed that flip of just: ‘Hey, how are you? Are you OK?’ Not, ‘Are you OK with me taking the show and you’re irreplaceable.'”
Telling Kaitlyn that he “appreciated” her reaching out regardless, Chris added, “At that time, I didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with all of that. By the way, I really, truly just wasn’t worried at all about who was hosting and who was the next mentor or what the show was going to do.”
