With his stint on Season 4 of The Traitors behind him, former Bachelor star Colton Underwood is reflecting on his time in the ‘Traitors’ castle, which he claims only happened because producers of the Peacock series agreed that his controversial past with ex Cassie Randolph wouldn’t be brought up on camera.
“I met with production. I met with Peacock. I was like, ‘I’m down to do this,’ because this show is about strategy,” Colton shared in a new interview with Vanity Fair. “It is about the game. It is about traitors. It is not personal. My only ask is, like, if I do this, I don’t want people to bring up anything outside of the game.
During the interview, Colton also revealed for the first time that, during the time of his stalking scandal, he was “struggling with Xanax and prescription medications.”
He called that period of time “a pretty intense moment,” during which he made “some really, really poor decisions.”
“I have a family now, right?” he continued, adding that he is, “so far past what happened six years ago.”
As The Ashley previously reported, Colton’s ex Cassie– who was a contestant on his season of the ABC dating series– filed for and was eventually granted a temporary restraining order against Colton in 2020 for stalking.
In court documents, Cassie accused her ex of cyber harassment and stalking, while also accusing him of taping a tracking device to her car bumper to track her whereabouts. She also alleged that Colton showed up unannounced to her apartment (and to her parents’ home) and that he sent her anonymous messages pretending to be a fellow stalking victim. (According to Cassie, Colton eventually copped to placing the tracker on her car and to sending the anonymous texts.)
Colton didn’t publicly speak out about the controversy until November 2020, when Cassie asked the court to drop the restraining order, as well as the police report she filed upon discovering the tracking device.
The following April, Colton publicly came out as gay and in September 2024, he and husband Jordan C. Brown welcomed a son via surrogate.
As fans of ‘The Traitors’ saw this season, despite Colton allegedly only agreeing to compete on the show if his past with Cassie wasn’t mentioned on-camera, comments made by fellow cast member and former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Rinna caused Colton to receive a wave of backlash online, which Peacock responded to by issuing a statement on social media discouraging fans from cyberbullying the cast.
(Lisa has since stated that she meant no harm by her on-air comments about Colton, insisting that she didn’t “want to be a part of somebody else’s hate online.”)
While Colton’s life has changed drastically since 2020, he claims to have also made a lot of changes within himself over the last six years.
“Since 2020, I’ve put a lot of into myself,” he said, as reported by Us Weekly. “I’ve worked with almost every network. I’ve shown up as a professional, I’ve shown up as a human being. I’ve taken accountability. I can sit here and tell you I’ve changed all the time. I think better than that, I can point to the last six years of my life.”
While he insists that he will own his mistakes, Colton maintains that much of what has been said about him on social media “is not correct.” He also revealed that he and Cassie are not in contact with each other.
“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,” he said. “I would always be up for it. It’s all on her terms.”
Season 4 of ‘The Traitors’ is currently streaming on Peacock.
(Photos: Peacock; ABC; Instagram; Twitter)
