In 2020, Underwood’s ex, Cassie Randolph, filed a temporary restraining order against him. Now, after a wild season of 'The Traitors,' the romantic lead turned reality villain is finally ready to talk about everything: his gameplay, facing death threats, his mindset during his dark pre-coming out days, and whether he’s still in touch with Randolph.
Underwood, a self-proclaimed introverted extrovert, has had plenty of time to consider the response to his Traitors gameplay. He was a polarizing figure during his stint on the competition’s fourth season, quickly emerging as one of the game’s most aggressive players: openly whipping votes, loudly and proudly announcing his targets.
Sometimes he was wrong—he went after Big Brother contestant Tiffany Mitchell, only to wind up with egg on his face. Other times, he was spot-on. “I loved how I showed up and I played,” Underwood says. “I felt like I played it differently than a lot of people have ever played the game. That’s something I’m really proud of.” Many people watching from home didn’t feel the same way. Over the course of the season, fans online mercilessly mocked Underwood for everything from his gameplay to the beaded corset outfit he wore to season four’s banquet episode . Traitors producers eventually issued a statement urging fans to stop “harassing” and “cyberbullying” members of the cast. In an exit interview with Variety, Underwood said that the mocking escalated to full-blown death threats against him and his family. Throughout that difficult period, Underwood felt he had the support of Peacock and NBCUniversal. “When everything first started to hit the fan, they let me know, “Hey, we have your back. This is intense,” he recalls. “The US version sort of gets like this. If you were to play the exact same way in the UK on the BBC version…people would love you and adore you.” Even before The Traitors, Underwood has been a lightning rod for reality fans. He spent two years in the NFL, playing on various practice and off-season squads before becoming a contestant on the 14th season of The Bachelorette in 2018. He was subsequently cast on Bachelor in Paradise, then chosen to lead flagship franchise The Bachelor—a tricky prospect for someone who was secretly struggling with his sexuality. But working at warp speed had its upsides: “I was so good at hiding my identity in football. I was so good at hiding my identity as a Christian man. And then, all of a sudden, now I could hide my identity through the lens of The Bachelor.” Underwood left The Bachelor in a relationship—but not engaged—to contestant Cassie Randolph. Their relationship did not last long: A little more than a year after the finale aired, Randolph and Underwood announced they’d split up. Months later, in September of 2020, Randolph was granted a temporary restraining order against Underwood, alleging that he sent her excessive text messages, showed up to her home unannounced, and put a tracking device on her car. In November of that year, Randolph withdrew the lawsuit after she and Underwood reached a private agreement. Until now, Underwood has been reluctant to speak about this period, which immediately preceded his public coming out on Good Morning America in 2021. In fact, he only agreed to do The Traitors on the condition that his past 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. It is about the game. It is about traitors. It is not personal,” Underwood says. “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.” That said, Underwood is adamant that onlookers still don’t know the full story about what happened in 2020—that they’re unaware of the context regarding his personal mental health state, as well as his personal security. Throughout our conversation, he addresses some of this in a contrite and careful manner—tripping over words and phrases in a genuine attempt not to make another misstep. “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,” Underwood says. “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.” Underwood has since come out, married Jordan C. Brown, and had a son via surrogacy. “I’m proud of who I’ve become. I’m proud of the man that I am. I’m proud of the husband that I am. I’m proud of the father that I am. Like, I am really proud of the growth and the work that I’ve put in.” Now, in an exclusive conversation with Vanity Fair, he’s ready to confront his past. “This perception of who I was at my lowest point in my life is not who I am when I work with these companies, when I work with these people, when I show up on television.” He steels himself. “There’s been a lot of change, a lot of growth, um, that I’ve put in over the years.” Vanity Fair: What was it like to watch the public’s reaction to your game play on Traitors? When did you realize that you emerged as one of the villains of the season? Colton Underwood: I wouldn’t consider myself a villain. I would consider myself maybe a protagonist. I am somebody who created friction. Okay. I mean, if we’re going tit for tat. I don’t want to get nit picky about the title. No, it’s fine. Look, I’ve been doing this a long time, and I understand the production. They have to make certain choices in the edit room to build certain characters. When the Traitors win the show, they have to edit it differently than when the Faithfuls win the show. They want certain people to root for certain people. I think once the finale is aired, it’ll all make sense to everybody why they had to edit me the way they did. Do you feel you were edited unfairly? There’s no part of me that is, like, angry at the way that I was edited. I think the context that’s lacking a little bit is every time I was shown on camera for the most part, it was me at a 10. You had a really heated exchange with Michael Rappaport at the roundtable where he said “Nobody in this room would be better at holding a secret than you.” Some people thought Rappaport’s comment bordered on homophobic. What was it like filming that moment? When that happened, I was sort of taken aback because it pulled me out of the game. I was like, “Okay, I felt like that was a low blow.” There’s a lot more that happened that was not shown. My husband lost his father while I was filming this. Production was incredible working with me: I was popping into random rooms in the castle and calling my grieving husband, who was telling me to stay there and keep playing the game. I wasn’t as emotionally sharp as I should have been for the Michael and the Tiffany episode. Everybody’s like, “You have intense crazy eyes.” I’m like, Yeah, I was sleeping one or two hours a night. It was pretty brutal. Michael is a fast talker. He puts his foot in his mouth a lot. Do I think he’s a homophobe? I don’t. Did he maybe say something that was a low blow? Yes. I’m not someone to hold grudges. I’m not someone to sit in that emotion. So I forgave, moved on. We’re good. I will say, it was one of the first times that I’ve really felt lifted up by the gay community. I’ve always sort of struggled to find my footing with who I represent and how people see me. There’s a lot of people who have a lot of opinions about how my coming out was. I still consider myself a baby gay. Like, I’ve only been gay for six years. I’m still learning things. The way that people showed up for me really, really felt good. Like, I had goosebumps. During the season, producers had to issue a statement telling fans to turn down their social media vitriol. You told Variety that your family received death threats as the season aired. What was it like navigating that emotionally? Our world is filled with so much frustration and hate. My heart goes out to them, ’cause there is a part of me that feels like some of it is projection. Where I draw the line is receiving emails with my address and my son’s name in it. Death threats were coming in that were really intense for not only me, but for my husband who doesn’t really love the public eye. From a professional side of things, it’s made it really difficult for us to navigate certain things. When we’re getting death threats, I don’t necessarily want to go to a movie premiere where it’s publicly known that I’m gonna be on that carpet…. There’s a safety thing for me and my family now. So that’s very real. I’m not a Bachelor person, so I wasn’t super familiar with you before The Traitors. Looking back on that experience, what was it like to appear in the franchise as someone who was struggling with their sexuality? What is important for people to understand, especially Bachelor fans, is, like, there was no part of me that went into The Bachelorette, Bachelor in Paradise, and The Bachelor as, “I’m gonna trick these people.” It was more, “I’m gonna convince myself that I’m straight.” That’s how I was talking to myself, and that’s why I put myself in this position. Look: I also can understand where people are like, “You shouldn’t have put yourself in that position.” But I grew up in the church. I grew up an athlete…. The culture that I grew up in, it was not easy to be gay. First and foremost, I did the show as this weird version of conversion therapy for me. I thought that it would really help me become straight. On The Bachelorette, a big part of your story line was that you were a virgin. How did that feel? These producers are so good at what they do. They got it out of me during my season of The Bachelorette, and it became campaign material for my Bachelor season. I hated it. I really did. I just didn’t want to open up any speculation on my sexuality…which it did. There was also the infamous Billy Eichner moment that aired on the show, where he called you the “first gay Bachelor.” That went viral. It was pretty easy for people to draw that line. I remember it making me feel so uncomfortable, because I wasn’t ready to come out of the closet. By the time that you went on The Bachelor, had you engaged in sexual experiences with guys? Yeah. I had physical, you know, relationships—not relationships—but moments with men. Enough to know that…it was going to be a thing. Like, I’m struggling with my sexuality. That was sort of where I was at. Obviously, we have to talk about what happened with Cassie Randolph. She alleges that you stalked her, put a tracking device on her car, and she eventually filed a temporary restraining order against you. What was going through your brain when your relationship with Cassie began to deteriorate? 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. 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. 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. Can you provide some more context about what was happening in your personal life at this time? I 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. 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. You’ve previously said you were blackmailed via email before coming out. Can you elaborate on that email and those specific threats? The threats in the email were that they had pictures of me at Century Spa. It’s known as a gay spa here . They had pictures of me, and they were threatening to release them to the public. The reason I’ve never shared the email is because…it has elements of her name in it. I’ve decided it’s not fair, in my opinion, to drag her through this. Not only am I dealing with the blackmail email; I’m dealing with knowing my iCloud, which is attached to my email and my apps, was hacked. I was dealing with not only invasion of my privacy, but also of my information, which was extremely terrifying and also contributed to my mental health downward spiral. I’ve never publicly shared the entire email. I’ve alluded to it. I’ve spoken about it. I think what’s important is that it put me into an extreme state of paranoia of, “I’m being followed. People are watching me.” I found out that there was a private detective on me, and there were people sitting outside of my home, in my condo in West Hollywood. What is the status of your relationship with Cassie Randolph now? Do you have any sort of contact with her, or is there none whatsoever? No, I have no contact. 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. That is something I’ve always offered. 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. In your Traitors exit interview with Entertainment Weekly, the publication that said they couldn’t ask you about Cassie. Why was she off limits, and why are you comfortable opening up about the situation now? I think the temperature changed. I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire. I don’t feel like it’s appropriate that every time I work or I do something that she’s mentioned and tagged in hundreds and thousands of articles. I can only speak for myself, but I can imagine that would be extremely difficult and also frustrating. So out of respect for the situation, I didn’t want to go into it. It’s important now to be honest and sit here for those of you who have been asking for accountability from me. I have done it in the past. I will continue to do it. You can look at my Netflix show. You can look at my Variety interview. You can look at several different things that I’ve done over these years where I have—and always will—take full accountability for my actions and that entire situation. It was handled privately, and there was an agreement that we were leaving it in the past and moving forward with both of our lives. There was no strategy in that Entertainment Weekly article, other than not wanting to add fuel to a fire. Do you have a response to those who might understand that you were struggling with your sexuality and dealing with substance abuse, but believe that doesn’t necessarily explain or excuse what went down with Cassie? When this first all started to happen, I went home to Colorado and I met with both my parents to fill them in. I surrendered my medication. I asked them to help me meet with a psychologist and a therapist, and put myself basically in intense therapy. I had to go seek intense help. I was meeting with a therapist and a psychologist once a week for about two months straight in Colorado. my mom basically was like, “You were supposed to make these stupid mistakes in high school. You were supposed to get this out of your system.” I’m not saying that as an excuse whatsoever; I will own it. it’s like what Tara and Johnny were saying on The Traitors. I didn’t have a normal childhood, and I was emotionally very immature for many reasons. I didn’t have a lot of time to invest in my relationships and my personal growth. I didn’t date at all in college. I was supposed to get some of these behaviors out of my system and learn these lessons that I never, never learned until I was a public figure in my 20s, and had to fall on my face in front of the entire world. What role do you feel forgiveness plays into all of this? I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to answer. I’m fully understanding if you want to never forgive me, if you want to hold my feet to the fire for the rest of my life. But I know that people who matter most in my life have shown forgiveness and love and support and the understanding that we all have gone through a difficult time. There is a part of me that does understand these people who are upset. I think a lot of them do lack a lot of the context and the complexity of the situation. But I don’t know if it’s necessarily for me to answer, “Do I wish they would forgive me?” It’s not up to me. Let’s talk about the idea of platforming. What would you say to those who take issue with the fact that these television shows are actively choosing to put someone with a checkered past on their programs when they could give that slot to someone else? Some people will probably be mad at me for conducting this interview. There is a part of me that’s like, “Okay, fair to have that opinion.” But understand that we go through intense background and psychological tests before we enter production on those things. I do take a lot of pride in the platform that I do have to speak out on mental health issues. To represent gay men that are closeted and in middle America. To represent them so that they don’t make the same mistakes that I made. What I would say is, unfortunately, a lot of closeted men end their life by suicide. That easily could have been me. I could have been part of that statistic. Instead, I’m here. I will have a lot of sadness and shame about things that I did in my past, and I will have to live with that for the rest of my life. That is on me 100%. Even going through this six years later, was my favorite show I’ve ever done. I didn’t really expect people to draw a line from how I showed up and played Traitors to my past, but that happened. Unfortunately, now I have to relive what happened six years ago with my husband and with my kid, as a father. As somebody who’s changed so much, to see things pop up on social media and to hear certain things—it’s challenging, right? That was such a traumatic time for a lot of people. It’s something I’m gonna always sort of have to own moving forward. There are some people in the world—and online—that will simply never forgive you. Why do you keep putting yourself on TV? It’s a great question. “Why do you keep putting yourself through this, dude? Like, go away if you don’t want it.” I love the entertainment industry. I love representing same sex couples who want to have kids, hosting Daddyhood . Having some of my gay friends reach out and be like, “It was so cool to watch you grab Rob’s backpack . Like, that representation on television was epic to see from a gay man. Oftentimes we have to shrink ourselves when we enter these masculine spaces, and the fact that you like put your chest out was really cool to see.” What gets me to show up every single day is the lives that I’ve saved. I say that because I’ve received messages from people across not only our country, but like, because of Netflix, the world, saying, “I didn’t see a path out. I didn’t know what my life was, but watching your story and watching what you went through helped me come out and saved my life.” Those are the ones that I hold onto dearly and that motivate me, that make my skin a little thicker. But don’t get me wrong, I still have days where I just want to go away. I wanna live on a farm. I never want to be seen. I texted my team after the reunion—I was like, “I need to go away and get off camera.” Okay, last question: the banquet outfit. What were you thinking? I stand by it. Really? Defend it. Alan Cumming went on Watch What Happens Live and called it “castle couture.” Like, if I have Alan Cumming’s stamp of approval…. By the time of that banquet, the dog pile was already happening on social media. I was an easy target, low-hanging fruit. We did receive a mood board from production of what that night was gonna be. And if you saw the mood board, you’d be like, “Okay, he showed up. He delivered. He is the mood board.” You’re in Scotland playing Traitors, and it is one of the gayest shows on television. I wanna lean into it.
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