Kaitlyn Bristowe Feared Fans Would Blame Her for Jason Tartick Split

Kaitlyn Bristowe is opening up about her split with ex-fiancé Jason Tartick and the fears that come with it.

In the latest episode of her podcast “Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe,” the “Bachelorette” alum shares what it has been like to go through a breakup in the public eye.

“We both are public figures, we both came from the same show, we have all these followers who we've let in; and we've invited them into our lives and our relationship and our home and what we're doing morning afternoon night,” she told her guest, licensed marriage and family therapist Jenny Wise Black.

“It’s become part of, like, business, but also, I feel like I'm supposed to entertain. I love using my phone to entertain, but now I've gotten to this point where something like going through a breakup — it's a loss. It’s grief, you're going through like the thought of losing somebody and all of these big emotions, and now these people are on the other end of this phone expecting you to share it with them while you're going through it,” Bristowe explained.

Kaitlyn, whose two-year engagement to her fellow Bachelor Nation star ended this month, shared how feeling the pressure of people wanting to know more about her private life impacted her mental health.

“They think you're hiding something. ‘Why wouldn't you be honest? I thought you were an open book? I thought you were this, and just tell us already that you guys are broken up.’ And I'm holding so much responsibility because I see them as this community that I've built for myself, and it is affecting my mental health so much.”

She continued, “Even though I have the logistics side of my brain that goes, ‘These people have their own things going on, they have their own traumas, they're looking to me for an escape.’”

The influencer added that while she realized she needed to separate her “reality TV” life from her real life, she still feared being blamed for the breakup.

“Like, this isn't reality TV, you have to give yourself time first before you give strangers on the internet time, no matter how much you think they're your community or family. But then my other side goes, ‘Oh, my gosh, they hate me. I'm gonna lose all the support and people are judging me, and they think it's just all me and it's my fault.’”

“And then here's the emotion and I am finding myself in the middle of that having to also be in the public eye and come out with a statement for everybody — it is so crazy to me.”

The star also revealed her plan to “go dark” from social media in order to prevent herself from getting distracted during her healing process.

“I got this, like, poster board and last night I wrote a target that just keeps getting bigger. I did in the middle circle the main one, I put Jason and Kaitlin, those are the two people that matter through this right now. And then on the outside, it's, like, our family, and then outside of that is, like, our really closest friends. And then outside of that I can't let that come into this. I can't answer to it. I can't take that on as a responsibility for their feelings. I'm a mega empath and I do take it on, and when I saw that I go, ‘Yeah, I can't go on social media then, because that's allowing that to be more important and these are the people that matter in this time.’”