Desiree Hartsock spent most of her season as the Bachelorette pining after and talking about her love for Brooks Forester. But after his shocking exit in Antigua, she realized there was another man she loved even more: Chris Siegfried. Speaking with Us Weekly about the two frontrunners after the "Men Tell All" special in July, Hartsock had only the best things to say about her then-secret fiance. She was, however, less effusive about Forester.
Asked what she liked — or loved — about Siegfried, the 27-year-old bridal stylist gushed, "Everything. I mean, honestly. [He's] supportive, manly, romantic. I really think he's an overall well-rounded person."
Any cons? "He's so good at everything," she demurred. "Really. I can't think of one bad thing to say about him."
The same was not true of Forester. Though she raved to Us about his "witty and sarcastic" personality, she lamented that he was too "analytical." He "analyzes everything, so that's why his emotions were always up and down," she said at the time.
But that's all in the past. In a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, Hartsock says there's no bad blood between her and Forester, who left her in tears when he told her he wasn't in love with her.
"I feel like that day in Antigua, we were so honest with each other that that was the closure we both needed," she tells ET. "So I didn't have too many questions for him [at the After the Final Rose special], and I don't have any hard feelings."
Her fiance doesn't harbor any ill will, either — despite the fact that Hartsock pledged her love for Forester on more than one occasion. "I actually didn't watch too much of it," Siegfried tells ET of the footage with the other guys. "We decided pretty early on that we would only — or I would only — watch the parts that her and I shared together, so I kind of held true to that and just watched my portion of the show every time it aired."
"We've built so much, and that's the thing that people don't get to see right now, is the real time," he explains. "And there's just no reason to kind of rehash the past or old memories."
Hartsock, for her part, confessed to Siegfried in the finale that she had loved Forester. And he proposed anyway.
"I feel like I was so blindsided by my feelings for Brooks that I couldn't see that the one thing I always needed was right in front of me," she told her now-fiance during the final rose ceremony. "You have been by my side from the very beginning…I thank you every day for never giving up. And you mean the absolute world to me. I love you. I love you so much."
