Colton Underwood Gets Real About Cassie Randolph Breakup on ‘Coming Out Colton’

Colton Underwood is sharing his coming out story and how it relates to his split with Cassie Randolph on his new Netflix series “Coming Out Colton.”

Colton and Cassie met on “The Bachelor” in 2019, but split in May 2020. Randolph filed a restraining order against Colton, but the order was later dropped. Months later, Underwood came out as gay on “Good Morning America.”

Now, fans are learning more about what happened.

In episode one, Colton says he thought Cassie could change him. “Everyone saw that first rose ceremony as just another rose ceremony. For me, it was so much more than that. I felt myself becoming more of a straight man," he says. "Everyone saw [the] hometown date on the beach and the connection that we had but I felt like I found somebody who could change me. The night that Cassie was leaving me on ‘The Bachelor,’ there was a big part of me that was thinking, ‘If I can’t get there with you then I definitely can’t with any other woman.’"

He goes on, “After ‘The Bachelor,’ our relationship was up and down and eventually, we broke up and I started to spiral. I was f—kd up. I was suppressing my sexuality so hard that I was taking medication daily to deal with depression and anxiety and that made me a paranoid freak. I didn’t trust a whole lot of people and I was trying to do anything and everything I could to protect a secret. I lost my mind. I did some things, I said some things that I’m not proud of. That's not me making excuses for what I did because I did f—k up. I made mistakes and I will take ownership in that.”

Colton also comes out to a friend named Kassidy, and reveals he tried to commit suicide after the breakup.

"I had a pretty bad weekend in L.A. after the breakup with Cassie, it was pretty rough,” he says. “I hit rock-bottom. I took a lot of Xanax, not thinking I was gonna wake up the next morning. I did. It was pretty bad. I literally drove home that day. I drove back to Colorado. That was, for me, I only have one life. Something's gotta change or I'm not gonna be here. I wanna be here. It's in the past now. That was tough."

In the second episode, he acknowledges that the restraining order was a turning point for him. While coming out to his dad, he reveals, “Sounds terrible but, like, the day I got the restraining order on me is when I knew that something had to change. I was so attached to a traditional life and my straight relationship that I knew she was my last straight relationship and I didn’t want to let that go because I didn’t want to have to deal with this.”

The former NFL player adds that he didn’t come out to distract from the drama with Cassie. “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. I knew that I couldn’t hide it anymore because I didn’t want to affect or harm anybody else in my life."

In episode five, when his dad asks about the restraining order and why he went to “extremes,” Colton says, "I knew that if I let her go, I would have to deal with me and I didn’t want to and I wasn’t ready for it."

In the same episode, Colton has a conversation with Gus Kenworthy about coming out on “GMA” before telling Cassie. Underwood says, "I wish things hadn't ended the way they did, so I could have at least given her a heads-up and been, like, actually conversate about it.”

In episode six, he addresses the backlash he received after the “GMA” interview, saying in a confessional, "There's only so much I can do in regards to the Cassie of it all. Legally, I can't talk about it and the only person I have to blame is myself. I'm feeling pretty down this week ... I'm spiraling a little bit."

He also opens up to Reverend Nicole Garcia, saying, “I held onto that relationship out of fear of being a gay man and not out of anything other than that and 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. I was literally, I can say, mentally unstable. I undid so many good memories. I texted the things that I texted and said the things that I said out of insecurities. That was me controlling the narrative and trying to stay in control of my life... After coming out, I have to relive all those labels of abuser, stalker, harasser. I'm mortified of what I did, but I'm even more mortified by the effect that it had on her and her family and her friends.”

Colton says it is still hard, noting, "I catch myself trying to control it again. It's like a vicious cycle that I’m going through right now of trying to give up control, but yet there’s a part of me that won’t let it go because it's like, you can’t afford to screw up again... I put the poor girl through hell and insecurities and all I can do is say sorry."

Underwood also meets with a mutual friend his and Cassie’s named Joseph who gives him some tough love. "I'm going to tell you straight up, what you f---ing put her through is bullshit. You f---ed up and there is no excuse, whatsoever for everything that you did," he says. "Scared her and put her in a situation, it wasn't comfortable for her. Yes, you are a gay man, which has been a part of your life journey, but at the end of the day, it is no excuse for everything you've put her through."

At the end of the series, Colton says he’s found “internal freedom” but that it doesn’t “erase my past.”

"I've been seeing a therapist for a while now, and I think it's really important to continue to have these conversations with people," he explains. "I'm going to go out of my way every day to try to become a better person and just learn from some of my mistakes."