The Bachelor alum Colton Underwood's friend, Gus Kenworthy, has revealed that Colton's "situation" with his ex-girlfriend Cassie Randolph will be part of what viewers will see addressed on his new Netflix reality series.
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Gus, a British-American freestyle skier and Olympian, will star alongside Colton when their Netflix docu-reality series premieres this fall.
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The show is expected to feature Colton's new journey as an out-and-proud gay man considering the former The Bachelor star had been in the closet since high school before publicly announcing he's gay in April on Good Morning America.
"When he came out, the [new] show was also leaked and it took things out of context. The information that was leaked wasn't even necessarily correct. And so, [Colton] and I both took a kind of a lot of heat online that I felt like was sort of unnecessary," Gus, 29, explained to Us Weekly in a video interview.
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"And some of it I don't even disagree with. People had qualms and wanted an explanation of his situation with his ex-girlfriend [Cassie]. I think that that's totally fair and valid that people took issue with that. And I think that the show will address that."
Colton gave Cassie his final rose on The Bachelor's 23rd season, which filmed in late 2018 and aired in early 2019. The pair dated for about 18 months and discussed getting engaged before announcing their breakup in May 2020.
What started out as an amicable split turned nasty when Cassie accused Colton of trying to "monetize" their breakup 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 in October of last year.
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.
In addition to Colton and Cassie drama, Gus teased that fans will learn all "about Colton's journey" on their Netflix show.
"He spoke with lots of people in the [LGBTQ+] community during his coming out process to try and get perspective and a better understanding of the community that he was joining," Gus shared.
"And that is not just me. It's not just cisgender white gay men. He talked to a lot of people and there are people that will sort of play a large role in the show because they had a big impact on him. It's trans folks and it's people of color and it's not just me."
Given Colton has received some "heat" since coming out as gay, Gus apparently believes it's "not fair for people to be hypercritical of him."
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"Everybody's coming out was difficult in some way, shape or form... It sort of feels like you're drowning sometimes," Gus, who came out as gay in 2015, explained to Us.
"And then you get through that and you climb up the ladder, and I think people are too quick to pull up the ladder afterwards."
Gus said he and Colton "randomly" met about four years ago when taping a podcast in Los Angeles.
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"We met there and then followed on Instagram and had very cordial, pretty surface-level [exchanges]," the Silver-Medalist Olympic athlete shared.
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"But we were, like, acquainted because of that. And then [we] really became closer friends in the last like six months, with filming and everything."
Gus, however, insisted he and Colton are just friends, which puts recent dating speculation to rest.
After coming out as gay in an April interview on GMA, Colton revealed to Variety he had experimented sexually with men prior to appearing on The Bachelorette starring Becca Kufrin in 2018, which preceded his The Bachelor stint.
"I'll say this: I was 'The Virgin Bachelor,' but I did experiment with men prior to being on The Bachelorette," Colton said, before disclosing he had a few sexual encounters with men when he was in his twenties but never had sex with a man or woman prior to his time on The Bachelor franchise.
"When I say 'hookups,' not sex," confirmed Colton, who had met these men under a false name in 2016 or 2017 through a dating app called Grindr. "I want to make that very clear that I did not have sex with a man, prior to that."
Colton called himself "a miserable person living as a shell of a human being" while pretending to be straight for well over a decade.
Cassie even had no idea Colton was gay during their entire relationship and only learned his sexual orientation when The Bachelor star came out publicly, according to People.
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Colton has said in the press he went through a very dark time following his split with Cassie and even attempted suicide one evening.
In new footage of Colton's GMA interview that aired during the April 15 episode of ABC's Nightline, Colton confirmed he hadn't spoken to Cassie "at all."
"I don't know if I ever will get the chance to sit down and talk with her. I would like to," Colton said.
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"I would like to say sorry for how things ended. I messed up. I made a lot of bad choices."
He continued, "I made mistakes at the end of that relationship and I ruined the good memories we had by my actions and what I did to hold on to being straight because I didn't want to look myself in the mirror. So for that, I'm extremely, extremely sorry."
Despite being gay during their near two-year relationship, Colton confirmed he was definitely in love with Cassie, which made acknowledging he's gay and his decision to come out to his family and the public even "harder and more confusing" for him.
"If I'm being very honest, I loved everything about her and it's hard for me to articulate what my emotions were in going through that relationship with her because I obviously had an internal fight going on," Colton explained on GMA.
"I would just say that I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart. I'm sorry for the pain and emotional stress I caused. I wish it wouldn't have happened the way it did."
Colton added, "I wish I would have been courageous enough to fix myself before I broke anybody else... Do I regret handling [The Bachelor] the way that I did? I do. I do think I could've handled it better... I just wish I didn't drag people into my own mess of figuring out who I was."
Colton said he realized he was different at the age of six and came to the conclusion he was gay in high school.
After "hating" himself "for a long time" and trying to convince himself that he was straight for years, Colton revealed he finally accepted his sexuality earlier this year and has never been happier or healthier.
Meanwhile, Cassie has moved on with a new boyfriend, musician Brighton Reinhardt, Us reported.
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