Not holding back. Colton Underwood said as much as he legally could about his up-and-down relationship with Cassie Randolph during his new Netflix series, Coming Out Colton.
Randolph, 26, and Underwood, 29, met during season 23 of The Bachelor. While they continued dating following the season in 2019, but announced their split in May 2020. Four months later, the model filed a restraining order against the reality star, claiming that he had placed a tracking device on her car.
“I think that was sort of a huge wake-up call. I’m sad that it even got to that point to where that had to be my wake-up call and me affecting other people in my life was sort of the moment that I realized I had to come out,” Underwood exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of the Wednesday, December 3, debut of the show. “Obviously, I wish I would have had the courage to come out without having to be pushed.”
In November 2020, the pair reached a private agreement, and the order was dropped. The Indianapolis native publicly came out as gay five months later during an interview on Good Morning America.
“Being gay is not OK for what happened at the end of the day,” Joseph Michael, one of Cassie and Colton’s mutual friends told him during an episode of the new series. “I’m going to tell you straight up, what you f—king put her through was bulls—t. You f—ked up and there was no excuse whatsoever for anything you did. You scared her and put her in a situation where it wasn’t comfortable for her.”
He wasn’t the only one who showed Colton tough love. During the show, the former football player sat down with Reverend Nicole Garcia to talk about what happened with Cassie, coming out and how to move forward.
“You want to sit down and apologize to make yourself feel better. That’s not the way to approach it,” she said, telling him that he can change by “looking the mirror and saying, ‘I was a piece of s—t. I wanted things my way so bad I was willing to do anything to make it happen.'”
The Reverend also told the Bachelor in Paradise alum that he needed to figure everything out about himself before he even considered dating again.
“I don’t think you have a freaking clue what it means to be in a healthy relationship because you have never been in a healthy relationship as you. You’ve always been in a relationship as somebody you’re supposed to be. Who are you?” she explained. “The best thing you can do is work on you and face up to what you’ve done — before you get into your next relationship, before you go in and f—k up somebody else’s life. Take responsibility for what you’ve done, and then work on not doing it again.”
Scroll down for a breakdown of what the First Time author said about Cassie on Coming Out Colton: