By now, most of Bachelor Nation has heard about The Bachelorette 2021 contestant Greg Grippo‘s actor controversy. Greg, a 27-year-old from Edison, New Jersey, was a finalist on The Bachelorette season 17 with Katie Thurston.
Greg eliminated himself in the final three after Hometown Dates when he felt that Katie “dismissed” his feelings about how much he cares about her. “I didn’t know I was going to fall in love with you. I didn’t know that. And I am in love with you. You just make me the happiest I’ve ever been. I see it with you. This is real to me,” Greg told Katie during the episode. “I haven’t been this vulnerable with anybody in my life. I don’t know what else to show you at this point or what else to tell you at this point. I know in my heart I’m not going to have any regrets after this. I’m not going to get down on one knee twice. It’s a one-deal thing for me.”
When Katie didn’t respond and just longingly stared at Greg, Greg asked her what she was thinking, to which Katie responded, “I just love looking at you.” This upset Greg and made him cold towards her. When Katie noticed this, she told him, “I’ve never felt like you’ve wanted to give up until right now,” which upset him more. The next day, Greg claimed that Katie “dismissed” his feelings with her response.
“I told my mom that you were The One. I was telling my whole entire family that. I truly felt that in my heart and wanted to express that to you. I expressed that I do love you. I felt like I was telling that to a stranger. I don’t know why. This whole entire time has felt like Katie to me, and that night, I was thinking that I was expressing my love to my future wife, and you didn’t even feel it,” he said. “You just completely dismissed it in my eyes.”
Greg then accused Katie of only having feelings for him because of the show. “I don’t give a fuck about the rose. I was just telling you that you filled a hole in my heart,” he said. “I’ve never given up on you. I’ve fought so hard for you here…As much as it hurts me, I’ve reached my breaking point with this. I gave you everything. I really hope you find something.”
After their breakup, Katie took to her Instagram with a post that seemed to accuse Greg of “gaslighting” her during their breakup. “So you want to talk about gaslighting,” the post read.
The post also included a slideshow with a definition for the term, referring to gaslighting as “a form of emotional abuse or psychological manipulation involving distorting the truth in order to confuse or instill doubt in another person to the point they question their own sanity or reality.” The account also listed lying, discrediting, deflecting blame, minimizing, shifting blame and denying wrongdoing as signs of gaslighting.
Image: Courtesy of ABC.
Is Greg Grippo an actor?
So is The Bachelorette‘s Greg Grippo an actor? Well, let’s explain where the rumors came from. Before Katie’s Bachelorette season premiered, Greg was already under controversy. In April, the celebrity gossip Instagram account @DeuxMoi received an anonymous submission calling Greg a “manipulative liar” and an “actor.” “Greg G is a manipulative liar and actor on Katie’s season of the Bachelorette. He cleaned up his social media/Linkedin and removed all evidence of his aspiring acting career the past few years,” the submission read.
The anonymous source claimed that Greg attended William Esper Acting School from 2017 to 2019. In 2019, Greg posted an Instagram photo of himself in front of the William Esper Acting School celebrating his graduation. “What a journey. Forever grateful for these last two years @esperstudio,” he wrote in the caption.
In their @DeuxMoi submission, the source called Greg a “total ego-obsessed diva in class” and alleged that he wasn’t on The Bachelorette for the right reasons. “He is not on the show for love, let alone Katie, and his appearance on this show is solely to promote / kick-start his acting career,” the source wrote. @DeuxMoi’s source also claims that Greg has been living at his mother’s house since he graduated from college and “never had a real job up until recently likely because he needed a bio for the show.” (More on what Greg does later.)
In June, @DeuxMoi received a second anonymous tip from a source who claimed to be a friend of someone who dated one of Katie’s Bachelorette contestants. Though the source didn’t name Greg, many assume that the submission was about Katie’s frontrunner because of they describe him as an “actor.” “My best friend dated a fan favorite contestant on The Bachelorette very seriously for a year and a half and he was awful to her. This sweet shy boy act is exactly that, AN ACT,” the source wrote. “He really is actually an actor. I’ve personally witnessed him throw a fit and call her a terrible name for wearing a mini dress, so I can only imagine what happened behind closed doors.”
The source also described her friend and the contestant’s alleged breakup. “He broke up with her, she was extremely upset and then made her Uber an hour back to her apartment alone at 1am,” the source wrote. “We watched our kind, confident friend turn into a shell of herself and then get thrown to the curb. Of course his social media is perfectly curated now, he has an image to protect.”
@DeuxMoi’s source also claimed that the contestant believed to be Greg e-mailed The Bachelorette‘s producers while he was still in a relationship. “Oh and he had been emailing with producers for the show while they were dating; this exposure was always part of his plan to launch his career so whoever wrote that first post is on point,” the source wrote, referencing the previous @DeuxMoi submission.
It’s important to note that @DeuxMoi is an un-fact-checked Instagram account, so neither of these submissions are confirmed. Though, from a look at Greg’s Instagram account, it’s at least confirmed that he’s an aspiring actor and attended William Esper Acting School.
In June, Katie “liked” and “unliked” an Instagram meme that shaded Greg and his “acting career aspirations.” “When the guy next to you is getting interrogated about wanting to be the bachelor and you’ve gotta pretend to be disgusted while hiding your acting career aspirations,” the meme read. The meme referenced another of Katie’s contestants, Thomas Jacobs, who confessed to wanting to be the Bachelor.
After Katie’s shade, Greg’s sister, Samantha, responded to the dig in a since-deleted comment where she expressed how “disappointed” she was in Katie’s behavior. “@thekatiethurston likes this post but was such a supporter of removing the toxicity and mean girls when she was on Matt’s season, you’d think if those intentions when [SIC] genuine she’d had just as much of an issue with this post as well,” she wrote. “Really disappointed in this.”
As for his jobs, Greg lists his job on The Bachelorette as a “marketing sales representative.” According to his Linkedin, Greg attended Rutgers Preparatory School before graduating from Saint Michael’s College in 2016 with a Bachelor of Business Administration in marketing. His most recent job was as an account manager at Mondo in New York City. Before that, Greg worked as a marketing executive at Melaleuca, a wellness company. As of writing this, Greg hasn’t responded to rumors he’s an aspiring actor.
The Bachelorette airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.
Image: Courtesy of Penguin Books.
Bachelor Nation by Amy Kaufman
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To get more of an inside scoop, check out Los Angeles Times writer Amy Kaufman’s book, Bachelor Nation: Inside the World of America’s Favorite Guilty Pleasure, for a deep dive into the Bachelor franchise. The book uncovers the secrets of Bachelor Nation, from how much the Bachelor and the Bachelorette are paid to the rules contestants have to follow, that producers don’t want fans to know. It’s a must-read for any Bachelor Nation member.
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