Blake Horstmann has been part of The Bachelorette and Bachelor In Paradise.
He almost found love on The Bachelorette with Becca Kufrin but he was dumped during the final episode right before the final proposal. His time on Bachelor In Paradise was nowhere near perfect.
In fact, his Stage Coach scandal ended up being so bad that he was being bullied by viewers because he revealed he had slept with several of the women on the show.
Now, Blake is opening up about his experiences, revealing that he struggled with suicidal thoughts when the show was airing on ABC.
Blake Horstmann revealed he struggled with the editing
Blake revealed that he worried about the editing prior to Bachelor In Paradise airing, but he quickly realized that it was much worse than he expected.
He shared his thoughts on the Behind The Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast this week.
“I was scared of how they’re going to edit it, but it was still worse than I could’ve possibly imagined. But so even those six weeks was really hard. But then when the show was airing, it was just felt like every Monday and Tuesday night for four weeks, five weeks, I was just getting my d**k kicked in,” Blake revealed during their conversion.
In fact, things got so bad that Blake reached out to a producer, begging them to please change the show and alter the editing to ease the way he was being portrayed. And that’s when Blake revealed that it was so painful that he was contemplating suicide.
“I remember calling a producer at one point. And I was like, mercy. I was like, edit me out of the rest of the show. Like I’m going to freaking kill myself. Like edit me out, like mercy. And they, they helped me a little bit towards the end, but I was just like, I can’t handle this anymore,” he explained.
But the pain didn’t ease once the show stopped airing. Blake explained that it took a long time before he could finally move on from the show and his struggles. He added that he still has bad days and that at the end of Bachelor In Paradise, he was at the lowest he had ever been.
“And I slowly came out of it, took a long time and I tell people like, it doesn’t happen overnight. Like you’re not all of a sudden going to be better. You know, I still have bad days. And so you just gotta like slowly, you know, I, I, I remember one thing, in particular, it was, it was probably towards the end of the season and I was the lowest I’ve ever been,” he revealed.
Blake revealed that one morning, he just decided to get out of bed and went to the store to get a Gatorade. Walking in the sunshine made him feel better. He explained that he made an effort to do more every single day, getting more sunlight and more outdoor time.
Blake Horstmann isn’t the only one who has experienced bullying
Blake isn’t the only person who has experienced bullying within Bachelor Nation. Based on recent developments within the franchise, it appears that both bullying and racism are now being addressed more effectively than ever before.
After Chris Harrison seemingly defended racism in an interview with Rachel Lindsay, Chris stepped down. Because of his decision to do so, Rachel was bullied and attacked on her Instagram account. She chose to deactivate her account because it was too much.
Rachel recently returned to Instagram after deactivating her account, sharing that she was back to shine – even though the darkest of times.
Rachel also got the support of the show. The Bachelor’s executive producers spoke out in defense of Rachel, revealing that people needed to stop because the mean and inappropriate messages were no way to deal with Chris stepping down from his hosting duties.
The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8/7c on ABC.