The Bachelor couple Cassie Randolph and Colton Underwood's breakup appears to be getting ugly, with Cassie calling Colton out for allegedly being a hypocrite and attempting to "monetize" their breakup.

ADVERTISEMENT
After Cassie conducted a brief virtual interview with Chris Harrison on Monday night's episode of The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons -- Ever! and touched upon her breakup with Colton, Colton took a dig at Cassie by writing Thursday on Instagram, "When our relationship ended we agreed to handle things as privately as possible as we attempted to navigate our new relationship as friends."

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)

"I chose to do that since we were living in this interim period, but obviously a lot changed this week... I have gained so much clarity about what I want and more importantly what I need in a relationship," he added.

Colton's post clearly upset and offended Cassie because she subsequently took to her Instagram Stories and essentially blasted the Season 23 The Bachelor star, whom she had dated for about 18 months before the pair announced their split on May 29.

"I would like to first state that I do not wish to create an online petty war. Colton, as you know we made an agreement to not publicly discuss our break up. I have honored this, as have you thus far," Cassie began.

"As some of you may know, I did a GOAT interview this week -- I purposely remained private and vague out of respect for Colton & our relationship... Colton, your last Instagram post saddened me, but also left me frustrated."

"It seems you are subtly engaging in a tactic that peppers in passive aggressive comments such as 'that obviously changed this week' in order to make me look like the bad one. I would like to place on public record & ask you politely to refrain from discussing our relationship, as we agreed."
POLL: WHICH TEAM ARE YOU ON?

 -  -

Cassie asked Colton not to "cloud" the "great 1 1/2 year relationship" they had "with a messy breakup."

"We both know that we had a great relationship and there are not many details to discuss," she wrote.

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW: WHOM DID 'THE BACHELORETTE' STARS AND THEIR BACHELOR PICKS ULTIMATELY END UP WITH?! (PHOTOS)

But Cassie dug a little deeper and wasn't about to let Colton off the hook that easily.

"On Monday evening, you informed me you intend to monetize our breakup by writing a new chapter to discuss your experience with COVID (where you stayed in my family's house during your recovery) & about our break up. You have also refused to give me any sort of approval on the chapter that you will be writing, which will heavily feature me," Cassie continued.
FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON THE ALL-NEW GOOGLE NEWS!
Reality TV World is now available on the all-new Google News app and website. Click here to visit our Google News page, and then click FOLLOW to add us as a news source!

"(A little insight as to why I was so frustrated on my stories that evening). This seems a bit unfair to me. Colton, you can do what you want, but please do not have a double standard."

The frustration Cassie was referring to was evident in her Instagram Stories on Monday night, when Cassie said she was "irritated" the editing of The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons -- Ever! episode harped on her comments about Colton and didn't show other topics she and Harrison had discussed. 

Cassie went on to say to Colton in her Thursday-night post, "I ask you again on public record to refrain from prolonging our break up, or dragging me, when we both know it's unwarranted. Neither of us, or anyone close to us, would have ever predicted that I would have to write this post."

"Again, I can't control your actions but I sincerely hope we can both move forward in peace. Thanking you in advance. I would prefer this to now be the end of this. I wish you nothing but the best & hope you can move on peacefully and successfully."

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' COUPLES NOW: WHO DID 'THE BACHELOR' STARS AND THEIR BACHELORETTE PICKS ACTUALLY END UP MARRYING? (PHOTOS)

Also in her Instagram Stories, Cassie explained why she decided to participate in The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons -- Ever! interview to begin with.

"If you are wondering why I did that Bachelor GOAT interview, it's because I respect the fact that Bachelor brought me the platform that I have. I don't want to make enemies with, or turn my back on the franchise," Cassie shared.

"I have no regrets, gained a great boyfriend and a healthy 1 1/2 year relationship, incredible and unique opportunities, and a platform that I intend to use for good. I want to show appreciation."

ADVERTISEMENT
"I didn't see any harm in doing the interview, as I wasn't going to dish out details about our relationship to them," she added.

Cassie claimed earlier this week she had initially agreed to do the interview with Harrison under the impression she wouldn't have to speak on her May 2020 split from Colton.

When Harrison asked what went wrong in her relationship and why she and Colton had decided to end things, Cassie said, "It's kind of a sensitive subject because I feel like we're still kind of going through it and it's still pretty emotional for both of us."

"And we haven't really talked about it publicly yet, and I don't know if either of us is ready," Cassie said, adding that it's been "really hard" to go through a breakup in the public eye.

"I mean, I've never gone through any of this before, so it was kind of hard to navigate it. We're on good terms and hanging in there."

RELATED LINK: '90 DAY FIANCE' COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER? WHO HAS SPLIT? WHERE ARE THEY KNOW? (PHOTOS)

After the interview aired, Cassie said she received "nasty messages" from people on social media calling her rude and disrespectful to talk about Colton on television.

"If you watched the interview, I said absolutely nothing -- like, absolutely nothing. That's not what it was about. That's not what it was supposed to be about," Cassie argued in her Instagram Stories that night.

"Believe it or not," she later noted, "there's so much more to me than just my past relationship, and I think that's why I'm annoyed."

Just last week, Cassie admitted she's had an "awful few months" since parting ways from Colton and she felt the need to delete her Instagram account for a month because criticism and judgment from fans got to be too much for her.

In terms of why Colton and Cassie split, Cassie reportedly initiated the conversation and a source recently told E! News, "Cassie was just not as ready for the settled-down life Colton wants right now and she tried to end it a few times."

A People insider shared a similar explanation for what went wrong, saying Cassie wasn't ready to get married and the pair had essentially just become friends.

Prior to their surprising decision to part ways, Colton had publicly discussed proposing marriage to Cassie and spending the rest of his life with her.

ADVERTISEMENT
RELATED LINK: 'DANCING WITH THE STARS' PROS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANT OTHERS: WHO'S DATING OR MARRIED TO WHOM!? (PHOTOS)

"We have decided we're not moving in together until we're married. So we have something to look forward to in that step," Colton said on the March 31 episode of Us Weekly's "Here for the Right Reasons" podcast, adding that Cassie has been extremely busy with work and school.

"She still has her internship and some time to put into that and it takes a lot of work for her to do that and takes a lot of her energy and focus. I can't imagine having to plan for a wedding and we still don't want a long engagement. So we want to make sure that timing-wise it's all right."

In addition, Colton had said on the podcast he and Cassie were definitely "up for" more reality TV.

"We've both talked about that and we're very hopeful that something might happen. We don't know, but we're definitely onboard with it. I understand the risks involved... but we both like and enjoy being on-camera. I don't see anything wrong with saying that," Colton shared.

"We like opening up when we can and when we feel it's appropriate, so we wouldn't mind it."

In his new memoir, The First Time, Colton admitted he and Cassie briefly split and went their separate ways in August 2019, People reported.

"To put it very frank, after the show, we realized we weren't communicating as well as we once did," Colton revealed in the book that was published in March.

RELATED LINK: '90 DAY FIANCE' COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER? WHO HAS SPLIT? WHERE ARE THEY KNOW? (PHOTOS)

"Nobody was forcing us to talk about real things going on, so we let a lot of things build up... In a weird way, I kind of broke up with myself. I was like, I feel like we need to figure this out and in order to do that, we need space. She agreed. So it was a mutual thing."

Colton became a member of Bachelor Nation when he competed for Becca Kufrin's heart on The Bachelorette's fourteenth season in 2018.

After failing to win her heart, he gave Bachelor in Paradise a shot but then went on to become The Bachelor's Season 23 star.

ADVERTISEMENT
When Colton starred on The Bachelor, his season ended prematurely when he fell in love with and selected Cassie over his other two remaining bachelorettes, Tayshia Adams and Hannah Godwin.

Colton had made up his mind before even finishing out his round of overnight Fantasy Suite dates.

However, Cassie attempted to quit The Bachelor at that stage in the process because she didn't feel ready to get engaged after dating Colton for such a short period of time.

Colton nearly ended production because he was so devastated, but he fought for Cassie to stay and ultimately convinced her to give him another chance.

Cassie was hesitant to continue but decided to stick around for Colton now that pressure of an engagement was off the table, and then she proceeded to meet his family on the show and fall in love with him once filming wrapped.

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)

Interested in more The Bachelor news? Join our The Bachelor Facebook Group!


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.