Colton Underwood insists the timing of his coming out had nothing to do with the tumult of his breakup with Cassie Randolph.
“I think there’s a real fear for me that people are going to say that I’m coming out to try to save my image and that I’m coming out to bury the drama that I had with Cassie,” the former “Bachelor,” 29, says in his new Netflix docuseries, “Coming Out Colton,” which premieres on Friday.
“That’s the furthest thing from the truth. If anything, the reason I’m coming out is because I’m ashamed and I’m sort of mortified of what got me to this position in the first place,” he explains. “I knew that I couldn’t hide it anymore because I didn’t want to affect or harm anybody else in my life.”
Underwood and Randolph, 26, announced their split in May 2020, a year and a half after she won his season of “The Bachelor.”
The graduate student subsequently accused the former football player of stalking and harassing her. She obtained a restraining order against him in September 2020, but dropped it less than two months later after the exes reached a private agreement.
“I held onto that relationship out of fear of being a gay man,” Underwood admits in his docuseries. “I did things that were messed up. I was paranoid. I was scared. I was terrified of myself. I was terrified of who I was going to become.”
Colton Underwood has apologized to ex Cassie Randolph multiple times since coming out as gay.Netflix; Getty ImagesThe “Bachelor in Paradise” alum no longer speaks to Randolph and therefore did not give her a heads-up before coming out on “Good Morning America” in April.
“There’s a lot more people than just Cassie that are going to find out that I’m gay from this interview,” he says in a confessional taped before his sit-down with Robin Roberts. “It’s the girls from my season, my football teammates, my old church, my old priest, my old teachers. There’s just so many people that I can’t talk to that are going to find out, and I don’t know how they’re going to react.”
“Coming Out Colton” premieres Friday on Netflix.NetflixSince the interview aired, Randolph has only made one public statement about Underwood’s sexuality. She said in a YouTube video in April that the “best thing for [her … was] to move forward” without “further discussing it or commenting on it.”
A source exclusively told Page Six ahead of the release of “Coming Out Colton” that Randolph, who is now dating singer Brighton Reinhardt, still has no desire to speak out.
“Cassie really just wants to move past any drama having to do with Colton,” the source said. “She’s being roped back into all this Colton mess because of the Netflix show.”
