Colton Underwood is opening up about his past in more ways than one.
The 34-year-old reality star faced a question during The Traitors reunion on Thursday (February 26) about the negative reaction from viewers this season as connected to his troubled past following his time on The Bachelor.
He also opened up in a new interview that debuted that same day.
Keep reading to find out more…
During the reunion, Lisa noted that Colton using the word “hostage” was an interesting word to use.
Andy then asked what his response was to some of the negative feedback from viewers, who brought up his history, which led to a restraining order from Bachelor ex Cassie Randolph.
“I think what I can understand from people viewing me back on television, if you didn’t follow my story and what I went through, and you watched me as The Bachelor in 2019, and then, all of a sudden, you’re tuning in in 2026,” Colton said. “I had an incredibly difficult couple of years, and I’ve grown, I’ve changed. I’ve put in so much work into myself and to my family. I never really thought the way that I would show up and play Traitors would be linked to one of the darkest and most horrible moments of my life.”
“There’s a part of me I could see why people are talking about it, but it is also for me, a challenging thing to go through, because it was, like I said, I was not in a great place,” he continued.
In another interview released right before the finale, Colton opened up his troubled past, revealing he asked production for his past not to be brought up on the show.
“I met with production. I met with Peacock. I was like, ‘I’m down to do this,’ because this show is about strategy. It is about the game. It is about traitors. It is not personal,” he told Vanity Fair. “My only ask is, like, if I do this, I don’t want people to bring up anything outside of the game. I have a family now, right? I’m…so far past what happened six years ago.”
“Since 2020, I’ve put a lot of work into myself. 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,” he added. “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.”
Colton also directly acknowledged the stalking and restraining order, and what was going through his mind at that time.
“It was 2020. It was, as people remember, COVID. I was fully convinced that she was gonna be my last straight…like, I was going to have to either kill myself or come out. That’s just transparently, like, where my mindset was,” he said. “I don’t know if this is the right phrase, but it was somewhat of the perfect storm of me hitting rock bottom, of me really trying to navigate, ‘Am I gonna kill myself or am I gonna come out?’ That’s just where I was at.
“And 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,” he added. “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 shared that he 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. 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,” he said. “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.”
He also said he has had no contact with Cassie since, but he’s open to talk to her or her family and answer any questions that they may have.
“That is something I’ve always offered,” he shared. “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.”
Recently, Colton responded to a rumor that he stormed off the set of The Traitors reunion.
