Cassie Randolph has revealed why she decided to return to The Bachelor and make an appearance after three years of seemingly keeping her distance.

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Cassie, 26, accepted Colton Underwood's final rose on The Bachelor's 23rd season, which filmed in late 2018 and aired in early 2019.

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Colton and Cassie talked about getting engaged, but they went through a devastating breakup in May 2020 after 18 months of dating.

Cassie then took some time to focus on herself and heal from the split, and Colton announced, publicly, he's gay on Good Morning America in April 2021.

"I feel like it was during a weird time in the world," Cassie, who mended her broken heart while in quarantine amid the coronavirus pandemic, told E! News.

"I grew a lot," she added.

But on March 14, Cassie appeared on the season finale for Clayton Echard's The Bachelor edition, and many fans were surprised to see she had agreed to participate following her highly-publicized split from Colton.

"It just presented itself," Cassie said of the opportunity. "I felt I had taken a step back for so long and I didn't want to do that anymore. So I thought I'm going to have fun with this and go on it!"

Cassie previously told Kaitlyn Bristowe on her "Off the Vine" podcast that her break from the spotlight was not even intentional, although many fans assumed she didn't want to talk about her personal life.

"I don't think I even meant to not do it," Cassie explained in late March.

"I think it just kind of happened that way... If they ever wanted me to, like, make an appearance like the other night, it was super fun. So, I was like, 'Of course,' but it just never really comes up."

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Cassie has been happily dating musician Brighton Reinhardt since May 2021 and therefore has no desire to compete on the reality dating series again; however, she suggested she's grateful for her time on The Bachelor's 23rd season.

"The Bachelor gave me such a cool platform," Cassie noted. "I really respect what it brought me -- new friends, so many cool opportunities."

Cassie recently earned her Master's Degree in Speech Pathology and started a job at a private practice. She said she hopes to become a "full-fledged speech therapist" in which she can work for herself and have people work under her, with her own group of clients.

Cassie also moved into her first home last year.

What started out as an amicable split turned nasty in June 2020 when Colton got angry about Cassie appearing on a Bachelor special after they had agreed to handle their breakup privately. Cassie thought she respected Colton's wishes and proceeded to accuse her ex of trying to "monetize" their breakup by writing about it in his "The First Time" memoir.

Colton allegedly put a tracking device on Cassie's car, sent her "unsettling" text messages, and would stand outside her apartment or her parents' house very late at night, which resulted in the restraining order against Colton that was ultimately dropped once a private agreement was reached in November 2020.

Cassie has said she had no idea Colton was gay during their relationship, nor was she given any type of warning that he'd be announcing he's gay on national television. She apparently found out on social media.

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On Part 1 of The Bachelor's Season 26 finale, Cassie was asked to give Susie Evans some advice on how she should handle Clayton's plea to give him another chance before the scene aired on ABC.

The situation is similar to what Cassie had gone through on The Bachelor 23, when she had threatened to quit Colton's season, which resulted in Colton dumping Tayshia Adams and Hannah Godwin and then trying to win Cassie back.

(Susie, however, couldn't get over the fact Clayton had fallen in love with multiple women whereas Colton only loved Cassie and she wasn't sure she felt the same way).

"I definitely was having deja vu watching this, for sure. And I know every situation is so different," Cassie told The Bachelor host Jesse Palmer.

"I think the fact that Susie left in the first place just kind of shows, you know, she really stuck with her intuition and was right. As hard as it was, she had to leave."

Cassie went on to say that she hoped Susie didn't feel pressure to take Clayton back against her gut instincts and better judgement.

"I hope that... she just doesn't feel pressure [to take him back] -- whether that's pressure from him to have a relationship or pressure to give a happy ending to the show or pressure because, when she initially came on the show, she wanted to find [an ideal relationship]," Cassie explained. "I just hope that she sticks with her intuition."

Viewers were therefore left wondering if Cassie had felt pressure to stay with Colton when he begged her to continue dating him and meet his family on the show in 2019.

"I had a feeling that when I was saying that, people were gonna allude to that," Cassie said on "Off the Vine" last month.

"It was so long ago now... There was definitely an aspect of pressure, obviously, because you're on this huge national show, and you're like, 'Any decision I make, people are gonna judge.' It's kinda hard to know why I did what I did."

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Cassie is sure, however, that she would have liked more time when making the decision whether to quit the show or give Colton a chance.

"It's overwhelming," Cassie acknowledged.

"There's so much happening. 'But do I want to? Is this the right decision for me? Is it the right decision for him, for the show?' It would have been nice to have a week to think about things... Instead, you're sitting there on the spot like, 'What should I do?' [It's] this huge decision."

But The Bachelor is now in Cassie's rearview mirror, and she gushed of Brighton, "He's a great person. It's very, like, natural. So easy, which I never understood until this [relationship]."

"I'm never questioning him or us. It's more just we get annoyed at little things," she told Kaitlyn, adding, "We've definitely talked about the future. There's no, like, plans on the horizon that I am aware of."

Colton, who is now engaged to political strategist Jordan C. Brown, told GMA last year that he realized he was different at the age of six and came to the conclusion he's gay when he was a freshman in high school.

Colton said he hated himself "for a long time" and was "a miserable person living as a shell of a human being" while pretending to be straight for well over a decade.

In addition to having starred on The Bachelor, Colton also appeared on two other seasons of The Bachelor franchise in which he dated women on television: The Bachelorette 14 starring Becca Kufrin and Bachelor in Paradise 5 when he dated Tia Booth.

Clayton has said in the press he thought being the Bachelor and dating Cassie could make him straight but he was ultimately lying to himself and he feels badly for having hurt so many women on his season.

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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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