Bachelor Nation Reacts to Colton Underwood’s Shocking Split From Cassie Randolph — and That Fence Jump (Exclusive)

Credit: ABC

Bachelor Nation Reacts to Colton Underwood’s Shocking Split From Cassie Randolph — and That Fence Jump

The most dramatic episode in Bachelor history? Ben Higgins, Nick Viall and former contestants from season 23 of The Bachelor opened up to Us Weekly about Colton Underwood’s shocking split from Cassie Randolph. Fans watched the former football player, 27, and the 23-year-old speech pathologist’s emotional breakup during the Monday, March 4, episode of the ABC dating series after Cassie’s father expressed his disapproval of the relationship. The California native decided to send herself home during her fantasy suite date with Colton, much to his dismay. “I can definitely see us working forever,” he admitted during the episode. “I feel like my whole life has been leading to tonight because I love Cassie. I want to be with Cassie. My heart is complete when I think of Cassie.” Despite confessing his love, Cassie still exited the series, which prompted Colton to leave the set by jumping over a fence in Portugal. [sendtonews type="float" key="RLZhclxmO4-3107822-14453"] “You see that, obviously, the story goes on and the show goes on and I think that I had a realization, ‘Life is not fair,’” Colton told Us about the breakup. “And then, having a conversation with my family and my dad really helped put things into perspective. It was like, ‘You owe this to yourself and you owe this to these women to really explore and see where to go from here.’” Scroll through to read the Bachelor Nation’s reactions to the shocking episode:

Credit: ABC

Bachelor Nation Reacts to Colton Underwood’s Shocking Split From Cassie Randolph — and That Fence Jump

The most dramatic episode in Bachelor history? Ben Higgins, Nick Viall and former contestants from season 23 of The Bachelor opened up to Us Weekly about Colton Underwood’s shocking split from Cassie Randolph. Fans watched the former football player, 27, and the 23-year-old speech pathologist’s emotional breakup during the Monday, March 4, episode of the ABC dating series after Cassie’s father expressed his disapproval of the relationship. The California native decided to send herself home during her fantasy suite date with Colton, much to his dismay. “I can definitely see us working forever,” he admitted during the episode. “I feel like my whole life has been leading to tonight because I love Cassie. I want to be with Cassie. My heart is complete when I think of Cassie.” Despite confessing his love, Cassie still exited the series, which prompted Colton to leave the set by jumping over a fence in Portugal. [sendtonews type="float" key="RLZhclxmO4-3107822-14453"] “You see that, obviously, the story goes on and the show goes on and I think that I had a realization, ‘Life is not fair,’” Colton told Us about the breakup. “And then, having a conversation with my family and my dad really helped put things into perspective. It was like, ‘You owe this to yourself and you owe this to these women to really explore and see where to go from here.’” Scroll through to read the Bachelor Nation’s reactions to the shocking episode:

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Ben Higgins

“The crazy part is for Colton, and we watch Colton do this and we feel for him, but we’ve also seen for the last couple weeks of this season where women have been asked to go home and they go, ‘But I thought this was going to work?’” Ben, 30, told Us at Ashley Iaconetti and Jared Haibon’s Lucy & Clark book launch on Monday. “Like with Demi [Burnett] and Caelynn [Miller-Keyes] and all these girls saying, ‘I thought this was the thing and now I feel unlovable again or I feel like nobody’s ever gonna like me.’ And I can relate with that. I can relate with the letdown and confusion of, ‘I don’t know what’s next now.’” 

As for Colton’s future with Cassie, the former Bachelor season 20 star told Us that he does not believe they belong together. “If somebody doesn’t reciprocate the same feelings that you have, no, then I don’t,” he admits. ‘No. Unless she can look at him and say, ‘I love you the same way’ then, no.” 

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Nick Viall

The former Bachelor season 21 lead told Us that he would have had a similar reaction to Colton if the winner of his season, Vanessa Grimaldi, left the show early.

“I thought Cassie’s dad, like I’m sure any dad, I think he handled himself great and I really appreciated his point of view. I get where Cassie’s coming from, it sounded like she was trying to do the right thing, then from Colton’s point of view, I’ll tell you what, I could relate,” Nick explained. “At that point of the season in my experience, my heart was kind of with Vanessa at the time, and had Vanessa left the way Cassie did, I probably would have had a very similar reaction. I kind of thought to myself towards the end that if Vanessa decided to leave, there would be no show.” 

He added that it will be “interesting” to see how it plays out with Colton’s final two, Hannah Godwin and Tayshia Adams. “There are other women, and that’s kind of the tough part, they’ve given their time too,” Nick said. “They’re kind of the forgotten ones of the episode but I’m sure we’ll get into it next week. Obviously, it’s interesting.” 

Regardless of what happens, Nick encouraged Colton to “follow [his] heart.”

“It’s interesting ‘cause you know, it all depends. I don’t know how Cassie really feels,” he told Us. “It seemed like she was pretty prepared to break up with him and I think she was probably trying to do the right thing and not look like the bad guy and not hurt Colton’s feelings and it’s just a tough situation to be in. I really feel for everyone, but hopefully it all works out.” 

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Heather Martin

“I think it just shows that he’s just really serious about this process and really wants to get engaged and I think him jumping the fence just shows his deep emotion,” Heather, who competed for Colton’s heart, told Us. “I have no idea what he’s gonna do. It’s insane and it’s like a whirlwind. I don’t know.” 

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Kirpa Sudick

Kirpa, who also appeared on season 23, echoed Heather’s thoughts that Colton was “frustrated” during the episode. She also noted that she knew how hard the athlete was falling for Cassie. 

“In the group date settings, you could tell,” Kirpa told Us. “There were definitely connections between him and Cassie, but also him and other girls, too. She was a strong one from the start.” 

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Bri Barnes

Fellow season 23 contestant Bri believed that Colton and Cassie’s “relationship developed pretty quickly.” 

“I think most viewers would be very shocked to see that,” she said, admitting she was too.

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Tracy Shapoff

“I was really shocked, honestly,” Tracy, who attempted to win Colton’s affections on the show, told Us of Cassie’s decision to leave earlier. “I was thinking that they have this amazing connection, then you start to see her suddenly tentative about everything, which you kind of saw during her hometown, but I wasn’t expecting her to leave. That honestly was shocking, and then her dad showing up that was probably the biggest shocker of all, but you could tell Colton is very distraught over it.” 

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Annaliese Puccini

The season 22 contestant told Us that she “thought it was going to be Cassie from the start” of the current season.

“I feel like they look like a perfect little … America’s sweethearts,” Annaliese, who appeared alongside Colton on Bachelor in Paradise season 5, dished. ‘Like cheerleader, football … they just look like that all-American [couple] you know?”

With reporting by Kayley Stumpe