It’s down to the final 3 men on Labor of Love. Kristy travels to Marcus, Kyle, and Stewart’s hometowns in the July 9 episode to get a closer look at what her future could be like with each of them. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with the final 3 about their approach to these crucial hometown dates.
Stewart lives in Los Angeles, and he really wanted to show Kristy that he’s ready to settle down. “I could very easily have gone to the beach with Kristy. I could very easily have glitz and glamour, but I really wanted to focus on what our life could be like together,” he told HollywoodLife. “So for our date, I wanted to show her where I’m living now, a real look at what life is like. I really also wanted to show that we can build a life together.”
Kyle admitted that his dates with Kristy in Austin were “the most fun that we had. It was a little easier for us to kind of let ourselves go and not get caught up in the pressures of the show.” For Marcus, he had the last hometown date and said that he didn’t think he had “quite as much freedom in creation. I guess I didn’t have quite maybe as much control over what we got to do and stuff.”
Marcus noted that these hometown dates were the “first time that you’re looking at Kristy and seeing how she fits in with you. We’ve just spent the last seven weeks trying to figure out how we could convince her that we fit with her, which is definitely a special kind of experience because then it’s so intense the first seven weeks in the house or whatever and then all of a sudden we have an opinion here.”
There was a little hesitation on Kyle’s end about bringing Kristy and the Labor of Love crew to his home. “I didn’t even know hometown dates were a thing,” he admitted. “So when they said, ‘Kyle, we’re going to your apartment.’ I was like, ‘Did I take out the trash?’ After the last elimination, Kristy went off with Stewart. I think it was three days and that was the hardest three days. That was probably the most difficult time for me on the show when she was with Marcus and Stewart on their hometown dates. I was afraid that Kristy was going to love Austin but look at my life and think he’s not ready to start a family. ”
Marcus also had some concerns about the hometown visit. He said that he was a “little apprehensive because there are certain things that I just do that are a little different, that are kind of built to prepare myself to have a partner. This is not exactly the glam of LA or Austin. What I’ve done while being here is kind of build a life and just to show that I can kind of do that anywhere. It’s a pretty neat experience, but because of that it’s very personal. My house is a very personal place, and it’s kind of something that I wasn’t sure I was ready to share.”
Stewart was thankful he got to have some “serious conversations” with Kristy. But the waiting game was hard. “I felt like it was a great experience, but then she went on to meet two other amazing guys. I had to wait a lot,” he said.
Kyle added, “I felt like that was the first time that we got to ask questions, too. With that said, it was great. It could have gone horribly wrong for somebody. But at the same time, I don’t think anyone of us felt more comfortable after the hometown dates. The look on our faces when we finally rejoined after the group dates, nobody was confident. It was the exact opposite.”
Given that there were two other hometown dates, it’s understandable that worry began to settle in. Marcus opened up about how he felt about his hometown date. “My concerns started to be like: is what’s happening here helping us? Are we making a sincere connection? It started making me kind of nervous about next steps because I wasn’t confident that we weren’t getting caught up in some production stuff or just the whole emotional saga,” he told HollywoodLife. “If you want the honest truth, I wanted it to feel like we checked enough boxes to where we were going to be able to take some really serious steps. None of us in this conversation needs to spend 10 years with somebody and go on 1000 trips to go have kids. That’s not the issue at all of too immature or not ready. It was just more that we had some serious things to do. I don’t know that on my hometown date I had checked all those boxes at that point for whatever reason.”
By the end of the July 9 episode, Kristy will have to eliminate one of the guys. Labor of Love airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on FOX.