The Bachelorette alum Shawn Booth may have won Kaitlyn Bristowe’s season but he recently admitted that he didn’t know if what they had was “true, true love.”
Shawn hasn’t been afraid to be brutally honest about his time on The Bachelorette in the past and it seems not much has changed.
Shawn won Kaitlyn’s final rose and they stayed together for three years after filming wrapped but Shawn doesn’t know if he was ever in love with her.
Shawn appeared on the Austin AF podcast to discuss his time on The Bachelorette.
Shawn Booth says ‘I guess it wasn’t’ true love
Podcast host Katie Austin opened a can of worms when she claimed Shawn “fell in love on a reality show.”
Shawn refuted, “Yeah, I think ‘love’ is a loose term.”
He then clarified, “Looking back at it, there was, like, a serious connection. I don’t know if it was true, true love. I guess it wasn’t because we’d still be together if it was.”
He said at the time, “you’re thinking it’s love” but also stated that filming The Bachelorette didn’t exactly mimic real life. While he had “a love for her,” he can’t commit to saying he loved her.
He continued, “Did I have a love for her? Yeah, of course. We had this connection, like, right out the gate. It wasn’t a forced thing. We connected and we had an awesome time. But, like, afterwards, the situation makes it pretty easy to fall in love. No distractions.”
This may come as a shock for some Bachelor Nation fans. The two got engaged in 2015 and stayed together until late 2018 which is longer than a decent number of couples who leave the show together.
Kaitlyn was ‘madly in love’ with Shawn
Earlier this year, Kaitlyn Bristowe spoke on her feelings for Shawn, and one could say they were in direct opposition to his.
“I was madly in love with him,” Kaitlyn said on an episode of the Reality Life with Kate Casey podcast. “I thought that was my person, and I would have done anything to try to stay with him.”
Kaitlyn struggled immensely with the breakup, especially when Shawn took his dog who she helped take care of, Tucker, with him.
Kaitlyn admitted that she hadn’t realized how much the relationship was putting a big strain on her emotionally.
She revealed that she found herself pushing friends away and it took a big toll on her self-esteem.
In 2019, Kaitlyn went on the Raw Beauty podcast and said she “wasn’t feeling loved over the last year.”
Unfortunately for Kaitlyn, Shawn may have not found “true, true love” with Kaitlyn at any point in their relationship.
However, she has since moved on and is happily engaged to Jason Tartick from Becca Kufrin’s season of The Bachelorette.
The Bachelorette airs on Tuesdays at 8/7c on ABC.