Blake Horstmann has some advice for any future contestants of Bachelor in Paradise.
Horstmann, 35, spoke to Us Weekly exclusively at the Newport Beach Celebrity Classic, which will directly benefit Steadfast LA and the Newport Beach Fire Department Foundation, on Sunday, March 16, at the Newport Beach Country Club.
“I’m glad it’s coming back,” he said of the new season of Bachelor in Paradise, which is set to return with a tenth season this year. “It will be interesting to see who’s on it this year because I don’t watch much of the show anymore. Here and there I watched some of Joey [Graziadei]’s season.”
Horstmann added, jokingly, that his “biggest advice” for future BiP contestants is, “Don’t talk to anybody before. Don’t even look at them.”
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He explained, “Honestly, I would say — it sounds cliché — you gotta be yourself. Because I think if you go down there with a plan, you go down with somebody in mind, you don’t give a chance to anybody else. So I’d say go in with an open mind and expect the unexpected. You never know what happens in there.”
He added that he “and Jason Tartick are still super tight,” adding, “I don’t think he’d ever do Paradise, but I would love to see him find himself a nice, normal woman. He would be fun, though.”
While he didn’t find love on Bachelor in Paradise, Horstmann moved on with Love Is Blind alum Giannina Gibelli. (The pair started dating after being cast together in season 1 of All Star Shore on Paramount+.)
Us confirmed that the pair had welcomed their first child together in March 2024, son Heath Orion. They announced their engagement in November that year.
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“She was born to be a mother,” Horstmann gushed to Us about his fiancée on Sunday. “It’s been fantastic watching her and how much Heath loves her and how much she loves Heath, and everything just comes so natural for her and so instinctive. It’s been really fun and incredible to watch.”
Blake told Us that he and Gibelli first “bonded” over their respective experiences on Love Is Blind and The Bachelorette “because it was very similar.”
“We got dumped on national television at the end or at the altar,” he said to Us. “We really bonded over that. I think we both just embraced where we came from, all of our trauma and scars, if you will. It brought us closer together. Fans know our story, and we just kind of embrace it.”
With reporting by Mike Vulpo
