Kaitlyn Bristowe, 37, is speaking out about how she perceives her ex Shawn Booth, 35, and the relationship he had with her, in a new podcast episode. The beauty, who got engaged to Shawn on season 11 of The Bachelorette in 2015, admitted she thinks he used her for clout “until his gym opened,” when she appeared on her now fiance Jason Tartick‘s podcast Trading Secrets. The former couple was together until 2018.
“It was, like, getting down to the end where we both just didn’t see it going anywhere,” she said on the episode. “It felt like he was hanging on until his gym opened. And that’s where I felt used professionally.”
Kaitlyn also revealed that she thinks Shawn may have struggled with the attention she received from being on The Bachelorette. “This is all just from my point of view and from how I felt and things that I saw,” she explained. “It doesn’t mean they’re right or wrong, but would you or would you not agree that when couples come off the show — whether it was a ‘Bachelor’ and the woman who picked or ‘Bachelorette and the guy she picked that’ — that is a really hard foundation to start on and a power struggle?”
Kaitlyn and Shawn, who is a personal trainer, called it quits in 2018 and that was the same year he opened a gym in Nashville, TN. A year after the breakup, she romantically moved on with fellow Bachelor Nation star Jason, and accepted his marriage proposal in 2021. Like Kaitlyn, Shawn spoke out about their previous romance on the Austin AF podcast in Nov. 2021.
“I guess it wasn’t [true love] because we’d still be together if it was,” he said, while adding that Kaitlyn’s pursual of Jason was “disrespectful.” He went on to admit that being on a dating reality show like The Bachelorette made him think it was love. “Of course, you’re thinking it’s love,” he said. “But you’re put in a situation where you’re completely secluded from the world. You can’t talk to your friends, you can’t talk to your family. You can’t watch TV. You don’t have the internet.”