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Nick Viall Claps Back at Kaitlyn Bristowe’s Claims That ‘Bachelorette’ Producers ‘Brainwashed’ Her
Not so fast. Nick Viall is slamming Kaitlyn Bristowe‘s claims that producers “sexualized” him to her as a contestant in The Bachelorette season 13, leaving her feeling “brainwashed.”
“Was she suggesting because someone asked her, I guess, what my breath smells like or how I tasted, that from that moment forward, she was incapable of decision making?” Nick, 42, asked after being told about Kaitlyn’s comments during the Tuesday, February 7, episode “The Viall Files” podcast.
While he didn’t discount that Kaitlyn may have been honest about what happened between herself and the producers, he added, “I can picture who it was. I know [which producer] it was, if it’s true,” Nick continued, although he didn’t think it went as far as “brainwashing.
Kaitlyn, 37, made the allegations about what happened during her 2015 season of The Bachelorette during a January 31 appearance on Amanda Hirsch‘s “Not Skinny But Not Fat” podcast.
“They really sexualized Nick to me. There was one producer — I’ve never even said this, you get the exclusive — one producer actually said to me, after I would kiss him, she’d come in and like wipe my lips and, like, lick her lips and be like, ‘Oh, I just want to know what that tastes like — to, like, make out with Nick,’” the former Dancing With the Stars champ claimed.
“They really, like, put them on a pedestal to me … That was part of their tactic. I was brainwashed,” Kaitlyn continued.
“He was very sexual with me,” Kaitlyn shared about Nick, adding, “He really made me feel desired. He was really sexual.” It obviously worked, as the pair hooked up midway through her season while on a date, long before they would do the same in a fantasy suite after Nick made it to the finals.
Nick finished as Kaitlyn’s runner up, as she accepted Shawn Booth‘s proposal in the season finale. The pair were together for three years before splitting in November of 2018. The Leduc, Canada, native soon began dating Jason Tartick, who competed on Becca Kufrin‘s season 14 of The Bachelorette.
Jason asked Kaitlyn on a date after appearing on her “Off the Vine” podcast in early 2019. They got engaged in May 2021. On January 14, 2023, the pair celebrated their fourth anniversary as a couple. “Happy four years of being blessed with this beautiful, crazy queen,” Jason wrote next to an Instagram video of the pair dancing.
Nick went on to get his own season of The Bachelor in 2017, eventually proposing to Vanessa Grimaldi. The couple split in August 2017, five months after the show’s finale aired. The Wisconsin native began dating surgical technician Natalie Joy in 2020 and found lasting love, as the pair got engaged on January 12, 2023.
