Gabby Windey from Clayton Echard's season of The Bachelor has shut down rumors that she had a relationship with Blake Horstmann in the past. Fans were introduced to Blake during Becca Kufrin's season of The Bachelorette as a 28-year-old sales rep from Bailey, Colorado. He was a standout contestant throughout the season and made it all the way to Becca's final two. Alas, she ultimately chose to be with Garrett Yrigoyen over Blake at the grand finale.
Blake was subsequently cast on Bachelor In Paradise season 6, and many fans expected that it would be Blake's redemption arc to find love in the franchise. However, quite the opposite happened, as many women on the show revealed that they had recent relationships with Blake out in the real world. As more and more hookup stories came to the surface, Blake ended up looking like a huge player who slept around with a significant portion of Bachelor Nation.
In October 2021, Blake implied in an interview that he had dated Gabby from Clayton Echard's season of The Bachelor in the past. During said interview, it was brought up that Dean Unglert had dated Gabby many years ago. Blake claimed that he also knew Gabby and joked that he and Dean liked the same type of girls. On the other hand, Gabby has now taken to the Talking It Out podcast to deny those relationship rumors pertaining to Blake (via Us Weekly). She said, "We never actually went on a date. There [were] no drinks paid for, no dinner paid for. [Blake] is saying we dated... he's definitely friends of friends." Gabby then explained what the time she spent with Blake consisted of: "You know, we had spent time together and stuff. But definitely no, like, official dating, no really kind of formal, no exclusivity. And again, it was a really long time ago."
As of January 2022, Blake is rumored to be dating Giannina Gibelli from Netflix's Love Is Blind. After Giannina got stood up by Damian Powers at the altar and still proceeded to date him post-season, she revealed in the After The Altar episodes that they were finally no longer together. Since this latest New Year's Eve, reality TV fans have been noticing that Giannina and Blake keep sharing social media posts being at the very same places. Now, there's a buildup of speculation that the Bachelorette star and the Love Is Blind contestant are getting to know each other and could be potentially starting a new relationship in 2022.
Meanwhile, Gabby has just started her journey on The Bachelor season 26 and is now getting to know Clayton on the show. Gabby's latest interview makes it pretty clear that she doesn't consider Blake to be an ex-boyfriend of hers. With that in mind, Blake's past statement regarding Gabby seems much more confusing.
The Bachelor season 26 airs Monday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
Source: Us Weekly, Talking It Out