Blake Horstmann was really busy before Bachelor in Paradise. Fans already knew that he spent time with fellow BiP contestants Tayshia Adams, Caelynn Miller-Keyes, and Kristina Schulman at Stagecoach this past April, but now it's come out that Blake went to Alabama to see Hannah Godwin before Bachelor in Paradise as well.
In the promo for Bachelor In Paradise episode 4, Blake was asked about his history with Hannah, and he admitted that he went to see her about a week before filming began. (That means their rendezvous happened after all the Stagecoach drama, since BiP didn't start filming until June.) Suddenly Hannah's inability to let go of her connection with Blake makes so much more sense. Dylan Barbour had suggested during Bachelor in Paradise episode 3 that there was more to the Blake and Hannah dynamic than they were letting on, because they just didn't make sense to him. Knowing that they had some sort of a history pre-show explains a lot.
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Blake said on the show (after taking Tayshia out on a date and going on a date with Kristina) that he came to Paradise for Hannah and intended to keep pursuing only her. In interviews ahead of BiP, Hannah also mentioned multiple times that she was interested in seeing Blake in Paradise. So they certainly knew of each other in the beginning, and then they eventually got to know each other so well that Blake went to Hannah's hometown to see her.
That encounter may have happened a week before Paradise, but the duo had actually known each other since at least March according to an Instagram photo posted by Lori K Public Relations, who does PR for several Bachelor Nation members. In the photo, Blake, Bibiana Julian, Danielle Maltby (she was the nurse from Nick Viall's season), and Hannah G. are all pictured. Hannah G. and Danielle were actually friends before Hannah even went on The Bachelor, so perhaps she's been in the same circle with Blake for a while, thanks to his apparent friendship with Danielle.
This reveal that Blake and Hannah already knew each other didn't completely come out of left field. Reality Steve wrote about the rumors that Blake and Hannah were more than friends before the show, and he included the information about Blake's visit to Birmingham in his episode spoilers.
And Caelynn had previously alleged on the Bachelor in Paradise premiere that Blake was DM-ing Hannah while with Caelynn at Stagecoach in April. Refinery29 previously reported that Hannah didn't go to Stagecoach, so she dodged the Blake drama there, but she's in the thick of things now between her relationships with Blake and Dylan on Bachelor in Paradise. And while a shared pre-show history might explain her intense connection to Blake, it's only going to make things even messier when everyone else finds out that Blake had yet another pre-show meet-up with one of the women. The drama just keeps getting wilder every week.
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