Colton Underwood & Cassie Randolph Split

On Friday, Cassie announced their split, calling it “one of the hardest things” to share since neither is ready to discuss it yet. She added, “Colton and I have broken up, but have decided to remain a part of each others lives. With all that we have gone through, we have a special bond that will always be there. I love Colton very much and have an enormous amount of respect for him. We have both learned and grown so much these past couple years, and will always have each others back. Always.”

In his own post, Colton said, “Its been a crazy few months to say the least, Cass and I have been doing a lot of self-reflecting. Sometimes people are just meant to be friends - and that's okay. We both have grown immensely and been through so much together - so this isn't the end of our story, it's the start of a whole new chapter for us.”

Colton and Cassie have been the subjects of breakup rumors for months. A few weeks ago, a source revealed that they were spending time apart, telling Us Weekly, “Everything is fine. [Colton] is just in Colorado visiting with his family since he hasn't been with them since the pandemic broke and recovering from COVID-19 himself. He was with Cassie up until the night he left for Colorado, but he'll be back in L.A. soon. They're both just enjoying time with their families.”

In March, Colton was quarantining with Cassie and her family, who were caring for him while he battled the coronavirus. He told “Extra's” Billy Bush, “I don't know how, but the entire family is completely symptom-free. Per the CDC and per all the health rules and regulations, we tried to follow all their guidelines as close as possible — and I think that's what saved them from having it.”

In his book “The First Time,” Colton revealed that he briefly split from Cassie last summer. He shared, “To put it very frank, after the show, we realized we weren't communicating as well as we once did. Nobody was forcing us to talk about real things going on, so we let a lot of things build up. 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.”

He continued, “It was a very real and very emotional breakup, but it was also very good to be real and emotional because it forced us to have conversations and move on. Now, we know the flags to look for. When issues start to creep up, it's like, let's go have a conversation. We're trying to be more transparent and honest and really trust each other.”