Peter Kraus Says He Felt “Isolated, Distraught” After Splitting from Rachel Lindsay
Fans may have been ready to see Peter Kraus as the next Bachelor, but he wasn’t ready to be the next Bachelor. (Thus, Arie Luyendyk Jr.) Kraus previously said he needed “more time for clarity” before stepping into that particular role, and now he’s opening up more about his state of mind after his split from Rachel Lindsay, admitting he he was in an “isolated” and “dark” place.
“It all just ended so fast,” Kraus told Us Weekly, addressing his goodbye to Lindsay before the final rose ceremony. As viewers saw on the emotional finale, the Wisconsin native and the former Bachelorette parted ways (tearfully!) when he couldn’t commit to proposing.
And as hard it as was for fans to watch, it was even more difficult for Kraus to experience. “It was just me, sitting there by myself in my own thoughts. That was a really dark couple of days. When you have no outlets, it’s hard to get out of your head.”
Things didn’t get any better when he got home. “Friends would ask me like, ‘C’mon, just tell me. Are you with her or not? Are you guys happy?’ and I couldn’t say anything,” the 31-year-old explained to Us Weekly. “I wanted to say something so bad. So, I really felt alone. That’s when I really started to feel isolated. There was no one I could talk to.”
He said that his parents tried to help him, but that they didn’t quite know what was going on. “[T]hey didn’t understand the emotions I was feeling, like, ‘Peter, you’re fine. It’s over. It’s cool. You’re good.’ I’m like, ‘No, it’s not. You don’t see the attacks on social media. You don’t see the questions I’m being asked every day. You don’t see the people coming up to me like, ‘Oh my God, you’re the guy that she’s with! Happy! You’re so great!’ and having to fake that.'”
When fans finally found out that Lindsay had ended up with Bryan Abasolo and not Kraus, they started campaigning for the personal trainer to be the next Bachelor. “It was just a loose conversation of, ‘Is this something you have ever thought about, something you would do?'” he told Us. “I was so distraught at that time that it was something that I could never see myself doing.”
However, he’s not ruling out a future appearance on the show. “If it were to come up again, I would definitely consider it,” he said.
First, though, he’ll have to survive the brand new Bachelor: Winter Games spinoff which will pit him against other Bachelor Nation stars as they take on winter-themed competitions while also potentially finding romance. Things will be heating up in the ice-cold weather — and Peter Kraus will be right in the middle of the action. We can’t wait!
Are you still on #TeamPeter? Let us know @BritandCo!
(Photos via ABC/George Burns + ABC/Craig Sjodin)
