Colton Underwood Reacts To Cassie Randolph’s Appearance On Clayton’s Bachelor Finale

Colton Underwood was not surprised when his ex-girlfriend Cassie Randolph appeared in the audience during Clayton Echard’s Bachelor finale. “I did know that she was going on,” Underwood said on the March 14 episode of Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti’s “Almost Famous” podcast. “One of the producers texted me just to give me a heads-up, which, I mean, obviously, they don’t even owe me at this point. But I did appreciate that.”

The former couple didn’t get engaged on Colton’s season of The Bachelor, but they did leave the show in a committed relationship. They called it quits in May 2020 and Cassie later filed a restraining order against him, alleging that he was harassing and stalking her. The 25-year-old California native ultimately dropped the restraining order, and in April 2021, the Season 23 lead publicly came out as gay on Good Morning America.

Cassie’s cameo on Clayton’s finale marked her first public appearance since she filed the restraining order. And even though she didn’t bring up their past, Colton said on the podcast that she can and should say anything about their relationship that she wants to. “Whatever she needs to say, like, I’ve always from the very beginning [said] whatever she has to say or vent or do, I obviously have no control over that,” he said. “It’s whatever she feels like she needs to do.”

Granted, Colton is in a much better headspace than he was before coming out. “There’s no way to, like, sugarcoat it,” he said. “I mean, it hasn’t been the easiest process. And I’m really happy, really good now, but it took a lot of work to get there.” He documented this process on his Netflix series, Coming Out Colton. “At the end of it, I mean, look, I could have handled a lot of things better and … saved a lot of people a lot of time,” he said. “But at the end of the day, my path to coming out, my path to finding happiness was definitely one that was pretty rocky.”

“Mentally though, I’m in a much better place,” Colton continued, adding that he used to contact Bachelor producers and beg them not to contribute to his “mental downfall.” “But I’m in a really healthy spot,” he said. “Now I have the love of my life to support me, I have my family to support me. I have a great group of friends and I’m not gonna watch, but I’m also like, excited if that’s what she needs to do, whatever that looks like, then so be it.”

Underwood has been dating his current boyfriend, Jordan C. Brown, for less than a year. In late February, he told People that they are engaged. “After my birthday, Jordan and I went to Big Sur for a weekend getaway to decompress and relax in nature,” he told the magazine at the time. “I couldn’t have pictured a more beautiful place to celebrate an amazing milestone in my life and relationship.”

Colton went on to say that he is “extremely happy,” and called 2021 “the most transformative year” of his life. “Starting 2022 off with my best friend, teammate and now fiancé is something I never thought was going to be possible,” he said. He shared additional details about their engagement with Higgins and Iaconetti on their podcast.

“He proposed to me,” Colton told the co-hosts. “I did not expect it. We had we, obviously, had a conversation prior to saying like, ‘Look, I think we're both ready’ — or we didn’t say I think, [but] ‘We’re both ready.’” He also revealed that they want to expand their family. “We’re thinking surrogate,” he said. “There’s a lot of work that goes into it. I did not know all of the steps. And I'm really, really excited about that process.”