Colton Underwood says 'Bachelor' producers 'crossed the line' by meddling in his relationship with Cassie Randolph
The coronavirus pandemic has put production on the next season of The Bachelorette on hold, while ABC has scrapped plans for its Bachelor Summer Games spinoff. But fans in need of a Bachelor Nation fix while they quarantine need look no further than their favorite online bookstore, where they’ll find a brand-spanking-new memoir courtesy of Colton Underwood.
Published on March 31, The First Time: Finding Myself and Looking for Love on Reality TV unravels the former Bachelor’s personal history and complicated experience on the dating show. which notoriously played up his status as a then-26-year-old virgin. (Incidentally, Underwood, who is still dating final rose recipient Cassie Randolph, is more tight-lipped about his status these days.)
Speaking to Yahoo Entertainment from Randolph’s family home in California — where the couple is isolating following Underwood’s bout of COVID-19, from which he has since recovered — the former reality star addressed some of his book’s biggest revelations, including his frustrations with producers he felt sometimes “crossed the line” while filming Season 23 of The Bachelor.
“I tried to stay really professional with it because there’s sort of this fine line,” Underwood shared. “I understand it’s showbusiness, I understand what I signed up for, but it’s still also my personal life. They have another season, another Bachelor to move onto, and I have my life — and my decisions that I make on the show carry on into my real life.
“I’m so appreciative of the franchise and I’m very grateful for their opportunities, but of course there’s some things we disagreed on, there’s some frustrations on my behalf, and I’m sure there were things I could have done better for them as well, so I’m not downplaying that at all. But when it came to my relationship, I didn’t want them to get in the way, and I felt at times there were some certain things that happened that just sort of crossed the line in my opinion.”
That said, Underwood underscored that his book “isn’t about trashing the franchise,” but rather an opportunity to describe his “constant struggle” with finding love within the constraints of a hugely popular TV show.
But neither Underwood nor Randolph — who abruptly left the show in Week 9 after expressing doubts about getting engaged, prompting her beau’s infamous fence-jumping moment — conformed to the standard Bachelor formula, which caused some friction.
“I don’t know exactly what their game plan was, I don’t know exactly what they wanted out of it,” said Underwood, who has written that producers appeared to discourage his romance with Randolph. “There was a part of me that maybe thought they just wanted an engagement, and they wanted me to go with somebody who was going to be ready for that, and I don’t think they thought Cassie was ready at the time. But that wasn’t for them to decide. I signed up for the show to find somebody who I could spend the rest of my life with, and if Cassie wasn’t ready for the show, to say yes at the end of the show, but she’s going to be ready in a year from now, then I’m willing to put in the work, I’m willing to be patient, I’m willing to compromise [on] what I went into the show expecting at the end. I can change — that’s allowed, for people to change what they want.”
Despite his frustrations, Underwood added that has no hard feelings for his former Bachelor producers, saying there’s a “mutual respect.” But he felt that showrunner interference could be responsible for sabotaging some of the on-screen romances. (Though Underwood didn’t name them, neither the last Bachelor, Peter Weber, or the last Bachelorette, Hannah Brown, ended up with their final picks.)
“They’re very good at their job, they know what they’re doing and they have a hit show,” he said. “I’m not here to bash or say anything poorly about them, but there’s also a point where I just want to stand up and say, ‘Hey, you guys need to get back to what makes the show so special, and what people love about this show, and that’s love.’
“You look back at the last few Bachelorettes and Bachelors, and they didn’t end with love, and you have to sort of ask yourself, why is that? I haven’t watched those two [seasons] but I’ve seen through social media, and even just talking to people, the frustration of [things behind the scenes] that maybe lead to ... not having that fairy-tale ending that they’re used to. I don’t know, I just hope that Claire [Crawley, the next Bachelorette] comes out of it very happy at the end of her season.”
Underwood admitted that he didn’t regret being so open about his virginity during his time on the show, saying, “Do I wish that maybe they could have handled it a little different? Of course, [and] I could have handled certain situations different as well.” He also laughed as he revealed how his grandma called him up after she read in The First Time about how he’d use fake yawns to signal to producers that he had a “boner” during a hot-and-heavy moment.
And more than a year into his relationship with Randolph, Underwood shared that things are going “great.”
“Obviously we’re like any other couple,” he said. “At times it gets hard — relationships are hard, and on certain days you have to work harder on that relationship than on others — but overall it’s been a good experience, and we’ve been very open and honest with each other about expectations, what we want out of the relationship. We’ve been supportive of each other, and I can’t say enough good things about her.”
— Video produced by Jon San
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