The Untold Truth Of Bachelorette Contestant Blake Moynes
From falling for Clare Crawley to winning Katie Thurston's heart, Blake Moynes has had quite the "Bachelorette" journey. He's wooed three Bachelorettes in total, continuing on in Season 16 after Clare departed early to be with Dale Moss and was replaced with Tayshia Adams (via Us Weekly).
Blake finally found love on Season 17 of the beloved reality dating show, proposing to Katie in the finale. "You have made me the happiest woman alive, and in a world of change, I want to be your constant, I'll love you today, tomorrow, and forever, and I can't wait for our adventure to begin," Katie gushed to her new fiancé (via CNN).
But Katie's heart isn't the only one Blake has won; he's also won over "Bachelorette" fans all over the world with his down-to-earth, good-hearted nature — not to mention his good looks. From "Bachelorette" contestant to Katie Thurston's main man, here's everything you need to know about Blake Moynes.
Blake Moynes wants to 'wife up'
According to his ABC bio, Blake Moynes is a wildlife manager from Canada who joined the cast of "The Bachelorette" in the search of that special someone. "In the past, Blake spent his Saturday nights hanging with his best friends, but now all of those friends are married and he's the last single man remaining," reads the bio. "Not one to like being left out, Blake Moynes now feels the pressure to settle down and wife up!"
Blake's bio also revealed his dream partner. "His dream woman is outdoorsy, beautiful, and fun," it says. "She has to have a goofy side and be okay with his self-described 'potty mouth.' He says he has no problems talking about his emotions and wants a partner who will appreciate that he wears his heart on his sleeve."
It looks Blake has found all that and more in Katie Thurston!
Blake Moynes fell hard for Clare Crawley
Blake Moynes' journey to falling in love wasn't an easy one. Before getting engaged to Katie Thurston, he fell hard for Clare Crawley, even sliding into her DMs — against the rules, no less — in the COVID-induced delay before her season started shooting. "During the quarantine, Clare posted on Instagram on a Story that she was really struggling right now because of what her mom was going through in the hospital," he explained on "The Bachelorette" (via ET). "So, I want to check in if she's OK."
Clare, however, was not impressed by the gesture. "So, over quarantine, it was really hard for me," she told Blake. "And I didn't want to bring this up, but there are these weird rules that we have to follow for the show of not contacting somebody, and you were the only guy who reached out to me the entire time. So, you broke the rule that you're not supposed to contact somebody."
Still, Clare and Blake ended up hitting it off, and Blake was devastated when she ended her season early to be with Dale Moss. "Nothing made sense to me," he told Us Weekly later of the abrupt departure, saying he didn't understand how Clare could have fallen for Dale so quickly until he saw the season air. "Now it does. But at the time, I was literally shook. I was distraught ... I started stress balding in the shower because I didn't know that was going on."
Blake Moynes was able to move on with Tayshia Adams
Even though Blake Moynes had strong feelings for Clare Crawley, he also found himself falling for her replacement on "The Bachelorette," Tayshia Adams. As he explained to Us Weekly, Clare's exit from the dating show was so sudden that it helped him move on. "It was easy to just be like, 'OK, fair enough,'" he said. "If it's that easy for you to say, 'See ya,' like, it's easy for me to be like, 'I'm not wasting another thought on this.' And that's not a mean way at all ... It is what it is."
Still, his relationship with Clare got in the way of his blossoming romance with Tayshia. As he explained to Us Weekly, Tayshia "had her guard up" when joining the show and that he had "a red flag over [his] head" because of his feelings for Clare.
Blake admitted that he thinks things would have turned out differently with Tayshia if he'd never met Clare at all. As it was, though, he could tell that Tayshia was hesitant about falling for him because she knew he'd recently had feelings for Clare. "It was tough because I felt, like, even emotionally, I could feel it, like, she could see something there," he said. "And it was so frustrating to get in the limo and be like, 'There's something here but you're just not letting it happen.' And that was the most unfortunate."
Blake Moynes is a total sweetheart
It's clear that Blake Moynes is a total sweetheart with a big heart. His emotional side is made evident in an Instagram post, where he revealed that he wants a romance like the one in "The Notebook."
He's also an animal lover, volunteering with animals and working "with a different endangered species every year," per his ABC bio. Blake has posted about some of these animals on social media, with one post showing him working with baby rhinos in South Africa. "Each baby rhino here has a sad story," he wrote about his work with the animals in an Instagram post. "Arthur the brave was trying to protect his mom and was hacked with a machete. Poaching (for rhino horn) is the rhino population's biggest threat and without wildlife conservation groups they would already be extinct."
We can definitely see why Katie Thurston fell for him!