Shawn Booth Reacts to Kaitlyn Bristowe's New Romance With Jason Tartick

The Bachelorette alum shares what it's like to see his ex-fiancee dating someone else.

By Samantha Schnurr Jan 25, 2019 4:00 PMTags
Shawn Booth, Kaitlyn BristoweJames Devaney/GC Images

There's some heartbreak over in Bachelor Nation. 

It's no secret to Bachelorette fans that Shawn Booth and Kaitlyn Bristowe are over. Just months after the formerly engaged pair announced their breakup, Bristowe found new romance with former Bachelorette contestant Jason Tartick and the two have not been hiding their budding relationship with social media posts. 

Their romance has also not gone unnoticed by Booth, who addressed the aftermath of their split for the first time on Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti's Almost Famous: In Depth podcast, to debut on Sunday. 

"I think just with her moving on so quick, I just have a tough time understanding why she would be putting this out everywhere or blasting it all over the place knowing that it could hurt," he said in an excerpt shared with E! News. 

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As the reality TV star explained, the formerly engaged couple were "working through things" during the summer, but were still together. Then, in September, the secretly broke up officially and announced the news in November. 

"Around the same time I learned about Kaitlyn and Jason in November," he added. 

Booth was audibly upset by their split. "Not only were we engaged, but it's like, man, I lost my best friend, too," he said. When asked what the hardest part of the breakup was, he told Higgins and Iaconetti, "It just feels like everything is just completely gone, like that Kaitlyn and Shawn gone."

Now, he's trying to get on with his life, though social media doesn't exactly help things. "Everything we've had, everything we've been through—we were this team and we got through a lot of stuff together, but then just like in an instant it's all gone, so it's just trying to move on from that and then stay positive about it and not let the outside noise take you down too much because living in a world where everything is on social media, you know it's nerve-wracking everytime I pick up my phone," Booth explained. "I haven't been on Twitter in months just 'cause I don't want to scroll the mentions and then going on Instagram, I do that for business purposes—obviously get caught with scrolling and that's always tough becaue you know, you have a pit in your stomach."

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Like any breakup, Booth has been trying to deal with the heartbreak and pain as well as understand what happened in light of Bristowe's new romance. "I guess this goes with her new relationship, too, just kind of makes me question everything that we've had, so I think that's one of the major questions that runs through my mind—just trying to understand that, which I think is tough to understand, but so I ask myself those questions."

However, he clarified that her new relationship also brings him a touch of comfort. "There's a part of me that is I do care about her, so I am happy that she doesn't have to really I guess deal with maybe all the pain and the heartbreak because it seems like she's moved on and she's happy, so that's gonna make me a little more comfortable knowing that that she's not at home at her empty house, so I look at it from that point of view and then I also think that its helping me to move on because it does hurt that much seeing everything, it does upset me and it does make me a little angry, but it also helps me to move on knowing that maybe we weren't right for each other and that I will find somebody down the road that will also make me happy."

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As for why things ultimately came to an end, their relationship was always rocky. 

"We had a tough go right out the gates, I think. I think everybody knows that it was a pretty dramatic season, probably one of the more dramatic seasons, but I'm not gonna lie and sugarcoat it and say, 'Yeah, it was all roses right out the gates.' I think we started having a tough time with our relationship in like the second week of the season. We went through all different types of ups and downs," he recalled. 

"There was always push and pull, push and pull, like we were going through some serious stuff on the show and then obviously once we're engaged, we're able to announce that we're together, we're happy, we're excited and then still have to deal with other issues."

He added, "I had a tough time on that show. It was always a battle of my heart versus my brain."

Runner-up Nick Viall also had an effect. "I think the whole Nick situation was a big part of our relationship," he admitted. "I think it's always something that was in the back of my mind. It was tough."