Going through his breakup with Victoria Fuller has been a challenge for Greg Grippo.

“Being in a public relationship and if it’s … things aren’t working out, it sucks even more,” Bachelorette alum Grippo, 30, said on Monday, April 22’s episode of Jason Tartick’s Trading Secrets podcast. “It’s hard. So yeah, I mean it’s sad, to be honest with you. It’s like, really sad. And you know, I just want to respect her during this time and you know, not going into detail on anything.”

Two days after PEOPLE confirmed the Bachelor Nation stars’ split, Grippo reiterated on Trading Secrets that he and Fuller, 30, “definitely ended things.”

Grippo, who first appeared on Katie Thurston’s season of The Bachelorette, credited having his relationship with Fuller undergo scrutiny early on bringing them closer together at the beginning.

“She has a really good heart and yeah, it sucks because you know, seeing somebody go through that type of s—, especially somebody you’re with in a romantic relationship with, is really tough,” Grippo told Talk Money to Me author Tartick, 35. “It’s really hard to watch. And I hated that part of it all. It definitely made us really close and we were definitely able to like, go through a really hard time really early.”

Fuller, from Peter Weber’s Bachelor season, and Grippo first confirmed their relationship in November 2022, following nearly three months of speculation that they’d been dating.

At the time, some viewers thought the couple’s relationship overlapped with Fuller’s engagement to Johnny DePhillipo, whom she got engaged to on Bachelor in Paradise season 8. DePhillipo, 27, claimed he and Fuller ended their engagement in mid-September, while Fuller alleged they broke up three weeks after filming BiP ended in July.

“I think that the women in the franchise get attacked, especially just a select few of them, no matter what they do,” Grippo said of his Bachelor Nation colleagues. “And like, granted I think it goes for a lot of the people but especially I think for, you know, her, she can … anything she does gets scrutinized, I feel like.”

Despite things not working out, “I don’t have anything bad to say,” Grippo added of Fuller. “She’s amazing and I know that she’s going to continue to do amazing things.”

The reality star said the breakup “was heavy for the both of us” and accordingly, he finds himself “in repair mode” now. Grippo, who currently lives in Chicago, shared that he plans to get an apartment in Brooklyn, N.Y. in September.

“This stage of my life right now, I’m really happy about and excited for,” Grippo said. “It’s just like, it just feels really fresh.”

Grippo also revealed he spent $12,000 on his first date with Fuller in Rome. “The villa in Capri was, that’s top-notch,” he said.

In the same Trading Secrets episode, fellow Bachelorette alum Andrew Spencer confirmed he, too, is single following an eight-month relationship.

Like Grippo, Spencer, 29, found dating someone in the public eye to be challenging and said it “1,000%” led to his latest split.

“I’m trying to try different things of how to navigate this public relationship because everyone you date now, everyone’s going to have an opinion on it and it’s hard to see hat man,” the former pro football player said. “And obviously, your partner as well, you want to protect them and they want to protect you. I think a lot of it was … it was a lot.”