Colton Underwood (L) and Cassie Randolph. (Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage)
Colton Underwood’s ex-partner Cassie Randolph reportedly had no idea the Bachelor star was going to come out as gay on television.
Underwood apologised to Underwood, who he dated after naming her the winner of The Bachelor season 23, as he opened up about his sexuality during a Good Morning America interview.
“If I’m being very honest, I loved everything about her and it’s hard for me to articulate exactly what my emotions were in going through that relationship with her was because I obviously had an internal fight going on,” the 29-year-old admitted.
“I would just say that I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart.”
Sources close to Randolph told US Weekly that she had no idea her ex would be coming out on live television.
“To be honest, she hasn’t really had time to navigate how she feels about it yet,” they added.
Underwood, a former NFL tight end, began dating Randolph after meeting on The Bachelor in 2018 – her family even helping him recover from COVID-19 in March last year.
But the couple split publicly in May, with the fallout seeing Randolph file a restraining order against Underwood.
She claimed that he was “stalking and harassing” her, sent her “unsettling text messages” from fake phone numbers and planted a tracking device on her car.
Two months later, she asked a court to dismiss the restraining order. The pair had reached “a private agreement to address any of Cassie’s concerns,” Underwood said.
Colton Underwood ‘sorry for how things ended’ with Cassie Randolph
During his Good Morning America interview, Underwood said that he did love Randolph, which “only made it harder and more confusing for me”.
“I’m sorry for any pain and emotional stress I caused. I wish it wouldn’t have happened the way it did,” he said.
“I wish that I would have been courageous enough to fix myself before I broke anybody else.”
Addressing potential concerns that he misled the female contestants on The Bachelor, Underwood said: “I would understand why they think that way.
“I thought a lot about this, too, of do I regret being The Bachelor? And do I regret handling it the way that I did? I do. I do think I could have handled it better. I’ll say that.”
“I would like to say sorry for how things ended,” Underwood said. “I messed up. I made a lot of bad choices.”