The Bachelor alum Colton Underwood has reacted to Cassie Randolph's appearance on the first part of Clayton Echard's season finale on Monday night.
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"I have no clue [what Cassie is going to say]. I did know that she was going on," Colton, 30, told The Bachelor alums Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti on Monday's episode of the podcast.
"One of the producers texted me just to give me a heads-up, which, I mean, obviously, they don't even owe me that at this point, but I did appreciate that."
Colton gave Cassie, 26, his final rose on The Bachelor's 23rd season, which filmed in late 2018 and aired in early 2019.
Colton and Cassie went through a devastating breakup in May 2020 after 18 months of dating, and then Colton publicly announced he's gay during a Good Morning America interview in April 2021.
Multiple sources have said Cassie had no idea Colton was gay during their relationship, nor was she given a warning that he was going to come out as gay on national television last year.
"But whatever she needs to say, like, I've always from the very beginning [thought] whatever she has to say or vent or do, I obviously have no control over that," Colton noted. "So it's whatever she feels like she needs to do."
Cassie made her first public appearance on The Bachelor franchise on Monday night after going through a nasty and highly-publicized split from Colton.
What started out as an amicable split in 2020 turned messy when Cassie accused Colton of trying to "monetize" their breakup by writing about it in his The First Time memoir as well as stalking and harassing her, which resulted in Cassie filing a restraining order against the former NFL player in September 2020 followed by a police report several weeks later.
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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.
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Colton later told multiple press outlets Cassie ultimately dropped the restraining order after they were able to reach an agreement in private that addressed Cassie's concerns.
"I think The Bachelor franchise, for me, became just so toxic and such a business that I didn't want to be involved in how they handle things like that. So I stepped away," Colton noted.
Colton, however, said The Bachelor producer had informed him Cassie would be speaking on a panel of alums during the Season 26 finale and he didn't foresee Colton's "name being brought up."
"[But] I've heard that before and it took a completely different shift," Colton explained, seemingly referencing Cassie's July 2020 appearance on The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons Ever.
At the time, Colton said he and Cassie had agreed to handle things as privately as possible and so he was upset she even mentioned their breakup on the show.
Cassie, however, thought she had handled herself with grace and was completely polite and respectful of Colton, and her TV appearance led to the demise of the former couple's friendship, or what was left of it at that point.
"Mentally though, I'm in a much better place. This is a very similar situation to right before my spiral, you know, where I reached out to the producer and sort of begged him not to, like, contribute to my mental downfall," Colton revealed.
"But, you know, I'm in a really healthy spot now. I have the love of my life to support me, I have my family to support me, I have a great group of friends. And I'm not gonna watch [Cassie], but I'm also like, excited."
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"If that's what she needs to do, whatever that looks like, then so be it," he added.
The former athlete, who is now engaged to political strategist Jordan C. Brown, acknowledged how it was a very "rocky" road to get to where he's at now.
"There's no way to, like, sugarcoat it. I mean, it hasn't been the easiest process. And I'm really happy, really good now, but it took a lot of work to get there," Colton shared.
"It was covered pretty much in [my Netflix docu-reality series Coming Out Colton] as far as how things went right after the breakup, and COVID and all of that. But at the end of it, I mean, look, I could have handled a lot of things better and changed a lot of [my behavior] and saved a lot of people a lot of time."
"But at the end of the day, like, my path to coming out, my path to finding happiness was definitely one that was pretty rocky," he concluded.
On Part 1 of The Bachelor's Season 26 finale on Monday night, Cassie -- who is currently dating musician Brighton Reinhardt -- was asked to give Susie some advice on how she should handle Clayton's plea to give him another chance.
The situation is similar to what Cassie had been through on the show considering she had threatened to quit Colton's season of The Bachelor, which resulted in Colton dumping his remaining Final 3 bachelorettes and then trying to win Cassie back. (Susie, however, couldn't get over the fact Clayton had fallen in love with multiple women whereas Cassie wasn't sure she was even in love with Colton and thought she was being unfair to him).
"I definitely was having deja vu watching this, for sure. And I know every situation is so different," Cassie said.
"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."
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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 if he does go back [to get her], which is seeming very possible that he's going to, that she just doesn't feel pressure -- 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]."
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Colton 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.
Colton 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
