The Bachelorette couple Katie Thurston and John Hersey have announced their relationship has moved in a serious direction.
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RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
Katie faced backlash for having moved on from Blake too quickly with a "rebound," but she and the San Diego bartender are still going strong and have taken their relationship to the next level.
"Spoiler alert: we live together!" Katie revealed during Tuesday's episode of the "Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe" podcast in a joint interview with John.
Katie shared how she and John began living together in February.
"[He moved] into my place," Katie said of her San Diego apartment.
When asked what they've learned about each other's living habits, Katie confessed she's messy.
"She is MESSY!" John agreed.
Katie joked she's "24/7 messy" and her bathroom is a disaster area.
"She leaves drawers open and cabinets open. And when you can't close them because of something, I'm like, 'You gotta -- you gotta clean that up,'" John said with a laugh.
John said Katie had attempted to use "the one-touch rule," which means using something once and then putting it back, but that plan didn't work out.
"And I've learned that he really doesn't like staying home, and so we've now learned [John] needs to get out, with or without me," Katie noted.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW"I wake up with the sun and then go out to go surf," John shared.
Katie said she and John must end up in a place where there's always surf because that's one of his main passions in life.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' COUPLES NOW: WHO DID 'THE BACHELOR' STARS AND THEIR BACHELORETTE PICKS ACTUALLY END UP MARRYING? (PHOTOS)
And on that note, Katie and John also bought a van together!
"It's not totally finished yet. We're still building it, but we're very, very close," John said. "So the plan is to just go places... Why not?"
John said he loves the idea of being able to travel around and not get stuck in one location permanently. One of their first stops is apparently going to be Nashville, TN.
John dubbed the van -- which he wants to call "Leroy" against Katie's wishes -- "so cool," and Katie admitted Dean Unglert and Caelynn Miller-Keyes were her inspiration behind this idea.
"That's my biggest excitement with the van, is both my dog and my cat get to come with us as we go up north on the coastline!" Katie gushed.
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Blake also believed Katie must have been emotionally cheating on him with John in order to have moved on so quickly from their broken engagement, which both Katie and John have firmly denied in the press.
Katie said on the podcast that she initially wanted to hide her relationship with John out of fear for how Bachelor Nation might react. She recommended they keep their distance from each other at a mutual friend's Christmas party.
"But John was like, 'I at least want to slow dance with you.' And then there's alcohol, and so I was like, 'Don't even try to kiss me in public,'" Katie admitted.
"We were already talking about how to not be [seen and] known. But it's also like, 'F-ck that.' I want to live our best life. I want to live in my happiness. I went through hell and back being on TV."
Katie said she finally determined that she owed it to herself to be in her "truest, happiest form."
"At the end of the day, I was like, 'Life is too short. I've gone through so much and I just want to be happy.' And so that's ultimately what we did; we owned our connection not knowing it would take us to this day," Katie said.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW: WHOM DID 'THE BACHELORETTE' STARS AND THEIR BACHELOR PICKS ULTIMATELY END UP WITH?! (PHOTOS)
Katie reasoned how "life is short" and "falling in love outside of the show is not that crazy."
"Look at [Clayton Echard] and [Susie Evans]," she noted. "That's what happened to them, and I can sympathize with how that was when the cameras turned off and you had to figure out what works for you in your real reality."
Katie concluded, "John makes me want to be a better person, and he challenges me... He's very energetic and he keeps me young. He says I have the potential to be adventurous... and he makes me want to go and try new things."
Katie accepted Blake's marriage proposal when The Bachelorette's Season 17 finale filmed in April 2021, but the former couple's engagement didn't air until August on ABC.
Katie previously hinted on social media that she and Blake had been fighting too much during their six-month relationship and decided to break up due to their different communication styles.
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In defense of her connection with John and why she had dumped him so quickly on The Bachelorette, Katie shared with an Instagram user in December, "It would have never worked for us on the show. He was too shy. A solid friendship first built an amazing foundation."
Katie and John went public with their relationship in late November when Katie posted footage of John on her Instagram Story set to Taylor Swift's "Begin Again," a song about falling in love all over again.
The John dedication served as the conclusion of Katie's "12 Days of Messy" challenge in which she had been tasked with matching every song on Taylor's re-released "Red" album to one of her Season 17 bachelors.
Blake initially called Katie's romance "a bomb drop" on him, but he has since come around and said he's ready to have a cordial conversation with his ex-fiancee if that's something she wants to do.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
