Speaking out.

Bachelor Nation first met Colton Underwood on Season 14 of “The Bachelorette” and again on Season 5 of “Bachelor in Paradise” before being named the Season 23 Bachelor.

After his time on the Bachelor Nation shows, Colton came out as gay and married his now-husband Jordan Brown in May 2023 and the couple welcomed their son Bishop in September 2024.

As fans recall, Colton originally left “The Bachelor” in a relationship with Cassie Randolph, but the two ended up going their separate ways.

What fans may or may not know is that in 2020, Cassie filed a temporary restraining order against the former Bachelor after alleging that he put a tracking device on her car. Later, the two reached a private agreement and Cassie withdrew the lawsuit.  

After not speaking about it for years, Colton is now finally addressing what happened and revealing where he stands with Cassie today. 

In an exclusive article with Vanity Fair, he shared remorse over the drama that occurred after his season. 

He said, “I will always own the mistakes that I made. I will always feel guilt and feel this extreme sadness for how I showed up for certain friends, for people in my life. Also fans — letting people down. At that point, people had been sort of invested in me and in my story. So I did feel like not only I let myself down, I let a lot of people down there.”

Colton went on, explaining, “I was struggling with Xanax and prescription medications. It was a pretty intense moment in my life where I made some really, really poor decisions. The difficult part now is seeing the people who have a lot to say about what happened six years ago.”

He added, “It’s lacking a lot of the context of where our world was at, but also where I was at, the state of mind that I was in. The pressures and the threats that I was going through. I will always take accountability. I will always own mistakes that I made. But everything that you’re seeing on social media —these videos, these people who have a lot to say — is not correct.”

The former Bachelor also elaborated on being blackmailed via email before coming out and how that affected his mental health. 

“I’ve never publicly shared the entire email. I’ve alluded to it. I’ve spoken about it,” he stated. “I think what’s important is that it put me into an extreme state of paranoia of, ‘I’m being followed. People are watching me.’ I found out that there was a private detective on me, and there were people sitting outside of my home, in my condo in West Hollywood.”

Colton then shared where he and Cassie currently stand and if there’s any contact between them. 

“No, I have no contact,” he revealed. “If she ever did reach out or want to reach out, I would be open to answering any questions that her or her family would have for me. That is something I’ve always offered. I’m in no position to really say much more than that or reach out. There’s been no part of me that would. I would always be up for it. It’s all on her terms.”