You are listening to the reality Sede podcast with your host Reality Steve. He's got all the latest info. And behind the scenes, Juice and Claires upcoming season of The Bachelorette and interviewing some of your favorite reality stars. Now, here's a reality, Steve. All right, welcome, everybody, podcast number one.

Ninety five on your host reality, Steve, say we got a great show for you this week would be an understatement. It is Colton Underwood.

Obviously, a lot to talk about with Colton, a lot because I've never had him on, never spoke with him. And we go over in the podcast how it all came about and. Before we get to that, just a few things, a few housekeeping things to get to. We're not going to spend too much time because I this podcast is over two hours long, so I just want to get right into it. But a couple of things.

If you did not read Tuesday's column, go to my website, Reality Steve Dotcom. That's the latest update on what's going on with Claire season. It's all laid out for you there. Um, I think that, you know, it's different than the narrative that the media has been selling, which is and possible to deal with. They wanted to fire her. Claire was going to quit all this stuff. Not true. It's all there. Tatia is now The Bachelorette.

She's giving out roses. She's already had, I think, two rose ceremonies because I know some guys that have been sent home from Tasos Rose ceremonies, but I don't know if it's two one rose ceremony or two that she's done. I believe it's two, though.

Anyway, there'll be more for you next week because I have found some stuff out since I posted Tuesday's column. I'm going to have some more stuff for you next week as well. But in terms of the Kolten interview, we do talk about how it all came about.

I do, obviously, because I've never had him on the other thing is I've never read Coltons book, nor did I hear that NPR interview that he did a while ago where he really revealed a lot of stuff. And I've heard clips of it or. Kind of the things that he said in it, but since I've never had him on, you know, what I do with former contestants, I go over their seasons and I basically just run down almost episode by episode.

All the stuff that the seasons they were on, if they were only on a bachelor or bachelorette season, we just focus on that. If they also did paradise, we focus on that as well.

With Colton, we had three seasons to go over and then everything that's happened to him post show.

So we do not I do keep it a timeline, which is let's start off with BECC season, because that's the first season he was on. Then he went down to paradise and then he went to became The Bachelor and then everything shows. So I keep that timeline for this particular episode because I wanted it to flow a little bit. And when we talk about each season, I don't go over. All right. First group date you were on was this and then you had a one on one.

I don't do that with Colton this. Podcast's would have been five hours long if I did that, I took each particular season, Becca's Bachelor in Paradise his season and focused on the main storylines that I could remember from those seasons. I think we pretty much covered everything, but.

Right off the bat, we addressed the Casy breakup situation and his thoughts, and he has an answer because I know a lot of you were like, why do they break up? They haven't talked about it, trust me. Coulter will answer that right away and we will get into it later on in the podcast, but that's all post show stuff, so it's later in the podcast. And as I said, it's two hours long.

The first 50 or 55 minutes is BECC season and then paradise, which pretty much is his whole relationship with Tilla. So there's a lot of talk in the first 50 minutes, pretty much all Colten, into your stuff in the first 50 or so minutes. And then we get to his bachelor season about the hour mark, I believe, and everything that's happened from his season and and on. I you know, obviously I've teased a couple of times with tweets, hey, this is there is something that I found out about six months ago that I never thought I'd be able to ask.

But that person is now my podcast guest.

I'm going to ask him and you will know exactly the point in the podcast where I asked Colten the question that I've been teasing and he answers it and I listen to his answer.

You'll know. Trust me. So I don't want to waste any more time. Let's get started, podcast number one ninety five, Colton Underwood. All right, let's bring him in. You first saw him on beka's season of The Bachelorette, then he went on to do Bachelor in Paradise Season five. Then he became The Bachelor, which was would have been bachelor number twenty three. He's now an author, a book called The First Time Finding Myself and Looking for Love on Reality TV.

Believe it or not, it's Courtney Underwood on this podcast, Caulton, what's up? How are you? I'm good. Let me let me preface this by saying I didn't expect this to happen, but a few weeks ago you reached out to me and kind of you even said in your first D.M. to me, like, look, man, we've had our differences. No hard feelings here, but just wanted you to know, you know, just kind of you kind of we're just shooting the shit with me.

And then we got to talking back and forth and I'm like. OK, there's a lot of things that issues that I may have had with you over your season ever hated you? I was just questioning a lot of things that happened and were sad. And then we're done. And I was like, hey, let's let's talk this out on a podcast. And you're like, sure. I mean, you've been pretty outspoken even from your book or interviews that you've done.

So I was like, you're the type of person that I like to have on the podcast, somebody that maybe feels a little bit slighted by the show, but ultimately likes to speak out on exactly their experience and maybe can fill people in on things that they never saw on TV.

Fair enough. I definitely think that's fair. I think one of the things like I always respect about you, too, is, I mean, while you had your opinions about me, I think what bugged me the most is you called me out on pretty much everything, you know, and I mean, you were pretty accurate in it all. And I think that that sort of at the time, me being a competitor and coming straight from my athletic background, I was just like the the competitive side of me kicked in.

And of course, I wanted to, you know, treat you sort of as my my opponent, if you want to call it, call it that. But but yeah, I think just reaching out to you, just saying, like, hey, I know we have I mean, I know we obviously had our differences. We had that little Twitter battle, whatever you want to call it, sub tweets or whatnot. And we had our fun during the season.

But yeah, just sort of just to say, hey, like, I see, I respect it. And I think, you know, and, you know, with the show is like I mean, do I feel slighted? It was it was a great opportunity. It was two years of fun. I will say that I had a blast filming it. And I like like you said in the intro, like I went from, well, from one show to another show to another.

So, like, I have to at the end of the day. So, like, look, I'm grateful for those opportunities. But you're right. I mean, like, a lot happened.

And I think, you know, one thing certainly that everyone is like, oh, God, is he going to be going to find out how why Kasey and Colton broke up and stuff like that. Look, we're going to talk about you and Kasey later on because I'm going to try and keep this in more of a timeline of I want to go in order of the shows that you appeared on, which would be we're going to first start out talking about BECC season, then on The Bachelor in Paradise, season five and then your season of The Bachelor.

So we'll get to the Kasey stuff. I will tell people like, look, Courtney, I've already discussed this off, off, off air and. When Casey did the goat episode and you guys had a little bit of back and forth, that's what we are going to talk about today, the post that you made, which then caused her to go to her Instagram live and say some things about you. We're going to address that. But if people are coming here just wanting to hear why casting Colton broke up, it's just it's not going to happen.

You've already expressed to me like, look, that's just not something that I that I'm going to get into because of my relationship with Cassie. I respect our relationship. We both agreed not to talk about it, but we will talk about that incident that happened because that holistic kind of certain kind of surrounds, Cassie, called the breakup that a lot of people are confused, including myself.

Rightfully so. Yeah, I know. And I and I appreciate you with that to as I was sort of my not that I had a condition of it, but I was like, hey, look, this is the one thing I want to stay away from. So I appreciate you respecting and honoring.

Yeah, there's there's plenty plenty to get to. Plenty of stuff that I mean, let's just jump right into it with Becca season. So. The biggest thing about Becca's season is even before you showed up on Becky's season, and that's Tia and I bring Tia up because we all know at this point you were going through the casting process of The Bachelorette, TIA is still a possibility to be The Bachelorette. You slid into her dams or maybe she slid into yours.

I don't remember who did what, but you guys get to talking. And then during January of 2013, when Becky's season was airing and you're a contestant on that season, you came to Los Angeles and you guys spent a weekend together.

Explain what was the thought process going into that, contacting to the reasoning behind all that and then kind of, I don't know, disappointment that Tia wasn't The Bachelorette and then still doing Becca because you wanted to be on TV. Just kind of explain what happened with all that.

Yes, so I originally was super excited to have the opportunity to even, like be going through the casting process of the show, so naturally and one of my meetings with them, they were like, hey, you know, here's the cast or whatever. I think it was already season after season, you know, tell us who your favorites are. And I just remember my instincts as like an athlete to, like, kicking in, being like, OK, like this is my next game now.

Like, I'm I was still trying to find my purpose outside of football. So I'm like, OK, I'm going to just dive into this bachelor world. And so I obviously like read spoilers or who was who is left. I was analyzing like who's going to become The Bachelorette. And for me, the reason why I like I followed I think I followed Becca, Lauren and Tia and to follow me back. And I was like posting stranger things like watching the TV show.

And she'd be I'm just like, oh, stranger things. I'm like, oh, this is sort of strange because I'm now, I would say a month or two into the casting process and I would say, like, I kept it from her for like our first two or three conversations. And then finally I was just very transparent. Like I was just like, hey, want to give you a heads up? Like I'm here with the show.

Like, this is where I met. And she's sort of like helped guide me in a weird way of being like, cool, keep me posted. And when I was out in L.A. for, like, the casting meetings. Yeah. Like the final I think it's like the final 50 or whatever. They don't really ever tell you how many left. But you get out there and there's like, you know, you know, if they're flying you out for a meeting, like, it's pretty serious.

I ended up flying out to and we hung out for my over my birthday weekend. Yeah. Literally the same weekend I'm casting. And obviously when they're asking me who I want to be The Bachelorette, I'm saying to you because I wanted to get to know her and I felt like, you know, I didn't know a whole bunch about the show. I didn't know if it really worked or how, you know, what went into making it. So, of course, I wanted the odds and I wanted to get to know her.

I don't know if that's like cheating gameplay, whatever, like whatever you want to call. I don't think there's any like I don't know.

I don't think there's rules or a rulebook for it all. But yeah, I mean, I reached out to her and it was more so just to look after myself or my heart, whatever you want to call it. If I was going to be cast for the show, I actually made a mistake in terms of timing there.

I said when TIA and you spent that weekend together in L.A., I was saying that your. It was it was BECC season was there, you know, it was R.E. season that was airing t t it was on TV, not you. BECC season didn't start filming until a few months later. So just wanted to clear that up because I'm sure I'll get crucified for that.

So you're looking at so it ends up being back up. Now there was another thing that went down and I think it was in January or February of that year, which was all again, so weird to me, which was we come to find out very much later down the line. And I think people pieced stuff together.

Tia and Caroline Lunney, who was one of the girls on your season.

Wait.

Yeah, no, Caroline, that was r e so so Tia, Caroline and Becca all go to well, Tia and Becca go to Florida to visit Caroline for a weekend. And during that weekend, you were still talking to Tia as like, hey, we're interested in each other. And there was a FaceTime call between you and Tia that Becca and Caroline, I believe, you know, hopped in on. Hey, your name is Colton. Hey, introduction.

Tell us.

Which was all weird to me, because then later on, when you show up on Becky's season out of the limo, I've always said this.

How did Becca not know that that was the Colton that Tia was talking to because she seemed to play dumb or didn't know at all? Can you explain that?

I can't explain that because I actually never I never wanted to ask her put back in a weird position. And I've always sort of like I didn't really distance myself from her, but like, I just respected it was what it was. But I do like I do remember that so much. I mean, I do know they were I think they like the W in Fort Lauderdale and I knew they were breaking out by the pool. So who knows. But I do know, like, Tia was talking about me to those two.

So like I knew she had to at least hear my name a few times. Yeah. But, you know, I will say this too. And I don't know, I never really asked you, but you and I were always very upfront with each other. And I think that's what people might not realize is like we were we were very much transparent with everything and anything we did. And that's why I have so much respect and appreciation for her is just because she said, look, this was an unbelievable experience for me.

I don't want to be the one to take that away from you or tell you, no, don't go do it. Like, if you get cast to do it, go do it, go have fun. Like, literally, I think I put my book. Her last text to me was like serious in paradise. Like she literally was just like, you know, like don't have a good time if it's meant to be, it's meant to be.

And like I, I actually like respected that and appreciated that and loved that about you.

So Becca's name, The Bachelorette obviously doesn't get it was their thought of.

You know what I want I'd rather I'd rather try with Tia and not go on back a season.

Or were you pretty much like you said you were open with TIA to the point where you said, look, it's Becca, I'm going to do it. And she obviously had up any sort of fight, right? She wasn't like, yeah, what are you doing this to me?

I want to stay like tonight as far as like having a conversation saying, hey, if I become bachelorette and you're not casted like I'm still doing it, I was like, cool, like completely understand. But like, I would do the same thing as far as the other way around saying, hey, if you're not bachelor, I'm probably still going to do it. Like like I said, we were very matter of fact and honest and I think obviously still like we were.

We still had emotions, we're still human, so of course, that probably hurt a little bit at the time, but we were both still like just didn't want to take an opportunity from one another. That makes sense.

No, it does. I'm just wondering if at that time. Maybe things weren't being I know you said you communicated well with her and you guys were both on the same page, but maybe there was something there because as we know, it ended up showing up twice on a season. So I guess my I guess my question would be during any of those conversations with TIA. Was it made well aware that, hey, we're we're good, like you're totally fine with me going on back a season, you're not mad or not jealous or was it kind of left?

You didn't even know if that's maybe how she felt. No, I think, you know, it's is obviously a very strong hearted person, very strong, a strong individual, so of course, she's going to tell me I think she I don't know, like she shoots it very straight, but like, I obviously think there was still like a little bit of like, you know, this is going to hurt and hard for me to say, but like, go do it.

Like I could tell, like, she still had a little bit of resentment, but not like, you know, not much so that I wanted to continue to do it. I think she really wanted me to go for it, too. But yes, I mean, we had that serious conversation. Like I said, I think the last text message to her was her last text message she sent to me was, I'll see your ass in paradise.

So, like, I don't know. I mean, I think she understood and, like, knew how fun of an experience filming was.

And I think, you know, one of the other things and this is just kind of just brings me back to I think if if you want to call it some sort of beef, I don't think it was more of a beef. It was just this outside opinion that I had of you heading into Becca's season when I found out that you were a contestant, was people were telling me, you know, I knew the you know, how the Aly Raisman relationship came to be with, you know, your teammate.

And it was you know, she was given a video and, you know, that stuff which I had I had nothing to do.

I actually remember being a little upset about that. And that that's the thing I think people might not realize fully about. Me, too, is like I I didn't want to put her on the spot. Like, I didn't know that I thought that video was going to be sent to her in private. And instead, Shawn Johnson showed it to her on a Yahoo! Sports interview. So they put her on the spot like that wasn't my idea or my plan at all.

It was more so like and you're saying, hey, we have you know, we have a girl that we want you to meet with. You want to meet her. And I was like, sure, here, I'll send a little video. And we hopped on the team plane to go up to our way game. But yeah, I that was one thing, too. Like, I couldn't fire back at you or any critics saying that, because one of my respect for Ali and I don't want to bring that back up again, but yeah, that it's like I didn't really want to get defensive of it all.

But yeah, that was like the last thing I really wanted out of that video, you know.

Yeah. And it just it especially for Bachelor Nation, it paints the picture of, OK, this guy just wants to be on TV or date somebody who is on TV.

And then even before we even jump in the back a season again, oh boy. There was people that came to me and said, this guy has been seen out with Savannah Christly. Like this guy is all over the map after Ali, he moved on to Savannah Christly, even though there was never anything. If you Googled Colton Underwood and Savannah Christly, there wasn't any I don't think there's ever any pictures of you two. You really had to kind of dig deep to find anything.

And those people seem to come to me and find me. And that's what just kind of put it in like, OK, I kind of get this guy's act now.

But was there anything was of Christley before BECC season?

Yeah. And I can say this now because Savannah and I are friends. Yeah. I after Allie a couple of weeks went by and I was sort of in a funk and didn't really know if I was going to put myself back out there again. And her and I just randomly over social media started talking again. And the next thing you know, I'm in Vegas for the ecms. And once again, just to give you guys my side of that story, I was very clear of like, look, I'm down to me.

I'm down to have a good time. I just got out of a serious relationship and I don't want to walk the carpet. I don't want to be photographed together. I'll sit and meet your family and say hi and like, hang out in Vegas and have a good time. So much so that I actually rode I rode in a suburban with Todd Chrisley to the carpet just to go in the back door so that like when Savannah and the rest of the family walked, I didn't have to be photographed or getting out of the same car too.

So I tried. I brought my brother with me and it was more of a low key, like just hanging out, having a good time. And I had a good weekend. I mean, that family is an amazing family and good people. But yeah, I totally see, though, my people. Bring that up and then it paints this picture of me looking a little I mean, I'm just sick, call it how it is like looking a little fame hungry, but like that that isn't that isn't or wasn't the case.

You know, there's definitely a different perspective, a different side for for me.

Savannah Christly thing was it wasn't much, but it was just a named female that was. Yepp. You know, had some notoriety that, OK, this guy is now linked to her. OK, so BECC season starts and I'm not going to go through the whole season. I'm going to hit on, I think the main points that people want to hear, which kind of revolved around Tia Tilla shows up.

I don't know if it was the first group date of the season, but she shows up early on in the season on that Spar group date and two, along with other women, to help out Becca. I think it was at CNN and I can't know who else, but there were a few of them that showed up.

When Tia shows up. Had any of the guys that had you told any of the guys in the house by that point that you had talked to, slashed, spent a weekend with Tia Prisco. Yeah, Jason and Garrett both like those those two were my those two were my boys in the house, they they knew and Jason was actually on the date with me. So he he was like sort of my my wingman or tried to be my wingman because I, I, I had an inclination just off of text messages and talking to Ted before I left for the show that she was going to be out there for one of the dates.

So like I knew it was going to come at some point. And just to back up a little bit further, like, yeah, I had I had not planned on telling. Anybody in the house or even production about to but like. Once you sit in that hotel room alone preshow for as long as I did without a phone and your mind starts wandering. Man, it plays tricks and games on you, I started thinking, like, man, I'm going to look like a fool if I get out of this.

Lemon Becker calls me out right away. So, like before I even left for that first night, I told one of the producers and like what I thought was confidence, you know, like I mean, once you tell one producer, like, holy crap, this is going to be good, you know? But yeah, I sort of came clean with something that I wasn't going to tell a lot of people. And the only people at that time that knew when we were on that date was Jason and Garrett and then obviously production.

So Tia shows up on the date. You're not bad. You're not bothered because you basically said, yeah, I kind of expected it at some point. So you're not mad. Yeah. So when when she did. And you guys talk. How did that go again, how did you think she left it? You know, I I thought we were all on the same page, I think that was always the thing that sort of threw me off.

But like knowing Tim, even like Tia and I are still good friends. I mean, between you and I, it was one of the first one of my first calls post bachelor, like after it was all said and done just because we had been through so much together with the filming, the airing, the behind the scenes stuff like she was somebody and still is somebody, like I could pick up and like sort of call and vent to. And that's what I've always like known our relationship to be is like we're like they're for each other, probably no matter what.

So, yeah, I mean, I thought we were sort of on the on the same page and our conversation went well, went well. And then obviously you guys saw how it aired to like even Becca had the confidence to be like, look, she was like, look, he was very transparent with me. Like that was like one thing that I don't think got shown enough on the show was the conversation of being like. From tobacco saying, like, look, this dude was nothing but honest with me from the very beginning, he wasn't shady.

He, if anything, was more direct than I probably even wanted. But I just I never wanted to, like, make him feel like I was using her for anything, you know, like, I think that was what was important to me is like I wanted to make sure, like I earned my relationship with Becca or I earned my relationship, whoever I was in. And that makes sense. No, it does.

The the problem being TIA was a done showing up on Becca's season.

So when we first find out and this is some clarity that you and I have talked about off air, but we'll bring it to the air because, I mean, it's not a major deal, but it was a major sticking point with fans when it happened.

During your hometown date in Colorado, when Becca came to meet your family, you said during that hometown date. Something along the lines of this is the first time you've ever brought a girlfriend home to meet your parents or a girl home to meet your parents, and then I got an influx of people sifting through your Instagram and saying, Steve, that's a lie. Aly Raisman met his family. Here she is. There's pictures of them in the same pajamas or whatever it was.

So explain to people exactly why you said what you did on the hometown date, even though that wasn't the first time you had brought a girl home.

Yeah, I obviously knew that was not true. But at the same time, what people don't realize is. About the timing that this is all going down, you know, Ali. Is going through the the court and the legal issues. Yeah, with the Nassar case and like for me, the last thing I wanted to do is be a distraction. And so with the help of ABC and lawyers and everybody that was involved, we had made an agreement to not bring her into it at all, including I was very careful.

I never really said her name. And if I did say her name, say her name, I knew that it wouldn't be used just because of our agreement. And I didn't feel like it was appropriate to sort of allude to it or bring her in when it was convenient or bring her up. So, like, I made the decision of sort of cutting it out and making sure it wasn't a story at all. And that was my way of protecting her and our relationship just because I didn't want them to have that to use.

And I think that, you know, the way that they handled that, like I said, like I might, I tip my hat to them because, like, they very easily could have for ratings purposes, used that storyline and they didn't. And I actually really, really respect them a ton for for at least honoring that. But yes, that is why I lied and I did it. I sort of did it in a way to protect her in the relationship and stuff.

It's understandable. And it's in the grand scheme of things. It's a really small lie. But so many people. Oh, I know.

I got called out left and right. I almost I almost addressed it just because so many people sent me. That was like our matching. Are matching onesies? Yeah, that's where my my family, my family has nothing but love and respect for her, too. And I think that, you know, that I only have good memories and good things to say about Ali. So, yeah, it's it's it seems like just a kind of a nit picking thing.

But yeah, I mean, if you say something on TV and it can be proven otherwise by sifting through somebody's Instagram account, you got to believe that people are going to jump on you for it. And they certainly did.

So that brings us to the final four before the rose ceremony of Becca's Final Four, which is you, Garrett, Jason and Blake. Tilla shows up again and she pulls back aside and basically says that she's not over you. Now, at what point did you know that Tia had shown up? I can't remember if you saw this on the show or did you not know until after you were eliminated? I didn't know until after I was eliminated, so.

I think you guys all saw the moment that I found out to was when she was. Breaking up with me after the rose ceremony, she said that and I just remember like, that's right. Oh, boy. Like, for real. So. That was the moment I found out about it, and I think going a little more into depth after finding out why. I mean, obviously. You don't just show how it is, you don't just show up on a set, and I saw like obviously I was a little confused at first, but then watching it like it was a group of girls, right.

They all came back to have a girl chat to check in before they left the country. Yeah. So it made a little more sense to me when I watched it back, because I think at first I'm just like, really, guys like like she just showed up randomly, you know, and not really it didn't make a whole ton of sense to me. And I finally got, you know, to watch it once it aired and stuff, and it made a little bit more sense.

But, you know, I did talk to Tia in the in between and here, sort of like how they got her out there. And I always wondered, like, did they tell her it wasn't me? So she felt a little more comfortable saying what she did. And I never like I've always been super respectful, like I never want to put them in an uncomfortable position, be like, hey, did tell me they told you to say this or they told you, you know, they tell you to say this.

They can't make you say anything. It's still your conscious decision. Like, I don't care who you are. I mean, of course, they could lure you into it or do psychology and manipulate you and all that, but like, you're still responsible for your tongue in your voice. I mean, that's at least how I always viewed myself on the show. We know that does happen, but we also know that they do have the ability to create a sentence that you never said in consecutive words, I can back that up.

And I know of several people who have had audio used in different places for sure. Yeah.

So were you mad at Tia when you found that out or what? It was just OK. Well, it's it's over. It's nothing I could do about it anyway. And when you got off the show and you were back home, did you immediately contact Tia? Yeah, so after getting eliminated, obviously, I was a little bummed I had really. Here's what I always say about about Becca, is you spend enough time around her. Anybody is going to fall like fall to love Becca.

And that's what I was starting to do. I obviously said it like I like I said it on the show. So I'm not I can't take it back and I'm not going to take it back because I do believe in that atmosphere. And given the circumstance I was under, I did love Becca, but. I remember like in that moment being sort of hurt, but then sort of relieved of being like, OK, well, maybe this wasn't meant to be and now I'm going to figure it out.

So I did I did contact you. I was advised I think we both were sort of advised not to just because we knew what was coming next and they wanted to save it all. But we, of course, talked like like I said, my dynamic and my relationship with TIA is. We went through something very unique and bonding and different than other people, you know. Yeah. And so you end with. Well, Tia kind of ends it, I don't know if Becca was I mean, you've you've been friends with I think you've spoken to Becca Post Show.

Yeah.

Was it the conversation that made her not take you to the final three or was where you pretty much getting eliminated regardless? And they just used to to say that to make it more drama filled and lead into a storyline that would be coming later on that summer. You know, I actually never asked once again, like, I just I don't know, I just never want I didn't really have the desire to ask. And then, too, is just like I didn't really want to put Becca or Tia in that situation and make it put them on the spot.

But I would have to say, like after having conversations with TIA and like or with Becca and hanging out in a group with her and Garrett, like, she she pretty much had it down to Garrett and Blake. And after going through it on the other side, like she had to have it down to Garrett and Blake after week four or five, I sort of convinced about that. Yeah.

And I don't think that's I don't think you're speaking out of turn or coming up with something totally off base with that, because we know how kind of it works. A lot of leads have that. So so that leads us into.

Bachelor in Paradise, Season five, you and Tia are almost like everybody knew that this was going to continue into paradise like we had, if as long as you two were both showing up on that beach, you were going to have to address.

What happened on a season?

And then, well, well, that's the weird that's the weird thing, because beka's season was done filming, but it wasn't done airing like every bachelorette season on a non covid year. The Bachelorette season is only two or three episodes in before the people head down to Mexico.

So it was really confusing to a lot of people. But we both knew that Colton Entier are going to be on the show they were going to have to address. Well, what eventually happened on beka's season, so but it's all happening behind the times because what happened down in BECC season doesn't air until the end of July. So when you and T are addressing it. It's not yeah, that's happening, and that was the hardest part for me because like I remember, I had Jason over to my house in Denver to watch Episode one with my family.

And I think I left her paradise like that next week. So I think I had gotten a screener I had seen like episode two before I flew out and just to try to get a peace of mind. But I didn't because, like, obviously none of that came to know that came out until I think three or four whenever. But like, I'm filming Paradise sort of blind, not knowing how I'm being edited on Bachelorette. Yeah. You know, so that was like the interesting part that I don't think a lot of people know.

It's like just that, you know, just like the way in the order that it's filmed and was sort of weird for me to grasp or understand.

Yeah, it is for the guys on Bachelorette because you're only one or two episodes have aired to the public before you head down and start all new storylines down there when you don't even know how you're going to be portrayed on your season. So it is it is kind of weird, but it happens every season like this is what we're used to. And now very early on, on Beka's or on Paradise, Season five, BECC shows up and you are kind of a hot mess.

Like you can't see her. You go up to your room. You were really bothered by Becca being there, not mad at her, but just like, wow, this is all kind of, I don't know, coming so fast at me. What was the thought process of when Becca showed up and the way you were? Which was I you know, you were pretty emotional about it. Yeah, I think. I felt like. I'm trying to think of a pretty way to say, but fuck it, I'm just going to say it.

I felt like it was forced, like I was like, man, they just they brought you back twice on businesses and now I'm in paradise and now I have to see BECC again. So I'm like, man, can I catch a break? Like, they really have to keep bringing these people back in. Like what? Like what is the point of this? I remember that being my thought process, my thought process of being like, man, they're really just getting me.

And I think they sort of enjoyed it. One, just because I had prided myself in the casting process of, hey, I'm this athlete, I'm mentally tough, I have this like mental fortitude, and I built my career off of being this tough dude. Right. And they I think they part of them was a little happy that they're like watching this macho football player breakdown and just completely shed these layers or whatever. I whatever. I was going through it at the time.

Yeah. I just remember, like, just being over more overwhelmed I think, than anything because I wasn't sleeping. I mean, you don't sleep a lot when you're there. There's no air conditioning despite me trying to bring an air conditioning unit there. Like the doors are open. You have crabs crawling in your bag. It just wasn't paradise. Just wasn't paradise for me. It wasn't my ideal conditions, to say the least. So I'm operating on very little sleep.

I'm pretty much hangry at all times. And I have to deal with pretty much feeling like not only the cast is against me, but I have external factors and people coming in and showing up that didn't need to show up, you know.

Yeah, and I think this moment right now and what we're about to get into is probably the biggest issue I have with how everything went down with you and how maybe you handled things. But I, I want to I'm it's one of the main reasons, obviously, I'm glad that you're on because I want to I want to hear your side about this. My impression my impression is this.

I don't think that there's any way you become the bachelor unless you went down to paradise. Is that fair to say? Completely fair.

OK, so you were probably told before you head down to paradise or you were probably told like, hey, if you want any shot at The Bachelor, you're going to have to do paradise and you're going to have to deal with this type of stuff. Is that accurate? OK, so if production is telling you basically like, look, you know, you got to show up for paradise if you want any chance at The Bachelor. Did you ever tell Tia this, did you take into account?

How she might have felt if she knew that. I think she always knew that was a possibility. So here's here's what I'll say when that when those words were brought up to me. Batcheller, you mean? Yes. When BATCHELLER was even presented to me and brought up to me, part of me was sitting there like, OK, they're just telling me what I want to hear right now to get me to go on this beach because I told them no, like for the first two times they asked for paradise and I didn't want to do it.

I was sort of in a position where I was like, this is I don't think this is in my cards. Like, I don't know if I can do this again. Like, I sort of went through a ringer here, like I was crying on national TV. My family's never seen me like this. I mean, my dad had seen me cry like maybe once outside of that show, like, my whole family had no clue who I was, because to them, I'm a football player.

Right. I'm like that. That's why I don't think a lot of people realize is like, if you would know Colton prior to this show, you wouldn't know me like you. You'd be like that is not the same dude. And that just shows you one how much I have obviously grown emotionally, but like to how far outside of my comfort zone I really was when I got thrown into all of this. But with that being said, I did make the decision obviously to go on.

So I did know the responsibility that I had for not only myself, but for you. I mean, like I said, I like her and I like I always knew she was going to have my back and I always try to be very up front with her. And honest with her, even when we had our date down in paradise, like I even I remember like saying I don't know how it aired specifically, but I remember saying to her, like, look, I don't like I don't like I don't know, like I don't think it was time that we need it.

I just don't know, like there was just something missing. Right. Like I was like, there's something more that I want out of a relationship that I'm not getting out of this. And I think that was at least my way of trying to be as fair as possible. I don't know if that answers your question or not, but I mean, I always tried to think about her in those moments, too.

There was something, though, that happened down in paradise where you basically, if I'm not mistaken, you asked here to be your girlfriend and one day later you had changed your mind. And so me being the skeptic that I am is like, I don't know if I'm extremely guilty.

OK, guilty conscience. Like, I'll admit that I think what when it hit me, so when it hit me was like, hey, I committed to it. I was like, you know what? I'm just going to do it. And I call it manipulation, call it peer pressure, whatever you want to say. Until people have been on that beach, until people have sat in those interview chairs, until people have gone through sort of what the cast goes through, you can't try to say, oh, do the right thing, do the right thing.

Like there's there's only so much you can do. Like there's only so much pushing back and so much fighting you can do. I mean, I think I tried to leave four times prior to like that conversation. And then finally I was like, you know what, let's do it. And you know what? I'm going to change my attitude here. I'm going to not think about if I'm going to be the bachelor or how I'm going to be portrayed on Bachelorette or how this is all going to be cut up.

I'm just going to do it. And I did.

And I had a moment at the very next rose ceremony where I looked over at her and like this was literally my aha moment. Like, I looked over at her and she looked up at me and smiled and like I remember saying to myself, like, I f I feel like this now. I'm about to crush this poor girl. Like, I can't keep doing this. I just I felt like just such a heavy and not and I'm going to, like, be straight up very honest with you, not because I was excited to be the bachelor, etc.

It just was something missing in the relationship. Like there wasn't it wasn't that fire, wasn't that thing that I needed in that moment. So like part of it was just like, I'm not going to keep going through the motions and handing a rose back and forth to each other and just be here to be here. Like, that's that wasn't what I was there for, you know.

And you can see, though, where. Once once we got to the end result, which was Kolten ends up being named The Bachelor, yeah, it's easy to look back on Paradise and say Colton couldn't leave, that Colton couldn't have left paradise in a relationship with Tilla because he has no chance to be the bachelor. So there's always going to be people that think, well, of course, he broke up with her. He couldn't leave that show either engaged to you or hey, let's try this in the real world relationship, because you couldn't be the bachelor that way.

And and I think when it changed from girlfriend, you want to be my girlfriend to 24 hours later saying what you did. And I know you keep saying there just was something missing. I can just fill in the blanks for a lot of people and say, yeah, that's something missing, was you needed to be single to be the bachelor. Like, I just think that that's what most people are going to think.

One hundred percent, I think I honestly like even like looking back at all of like where the dominos fell for everybody. I mean, of course, people can look back and say that and think that. And I mean, even part of me like looks back and questions at to about myself. And I think, you know, my dad actually brought up a good point, too, like my dad even put that on me too. And my dad goes, if you knew you didn't have a possibility of being the bachelor, would you have tried harder?

And yeah, that sort of that sort of hit me, too. It's like because my my dad my dad loves to like he he thinks she's amazing and I do too, like but my my dad was like he he really likes her and he asked me that question and I was like, that's, it's a fair question. And I know a lot of fans and a lot of people were asking it of like in the back of my mind, if I had been told you will not be the bachelor and you you have no shot at being it.

So don't try. I don't know, I, I don't I don't have that answer for you because like I'm telling you, until you sit in those chairs and until you go through that, it is unlike anything else that I can't explain to. People are like try to walk through people through. But I, I do think it's completely fair of you to say that. And I remember being mad when you and other people and critics of being like, no, that's not the case.

But like I think I was mad and I was angry and I was upset because, like, deep down, I was just trying to figure out if that was true or not. You know, I'm I don't know.

Yeah. And the thing that that helped kind of. I don't know, confirm that narrative or get people to believe that narrative was when Raven came down with Adam and warned you about you like, hey, this guy is going to break your heart. And he always seems very opportunistic and I just don't have a good feeling about him. That's what Raven was telling Tia. And then it ends up playing out exactly like Raven said, and it doesn't look good for you.

So how do you do you think that you were in any way, shape or form gaming the system here or trying to game the system and just be like. I don't think I don't think I was trying. I don't think personally I had this master game plan or like what needed to happen. I, I will say this. I do feel like at times I gave in to saying what? People wanted me to say on camera. OK, I will say that, like and you have to and you have to own that, like you said, because I can't make it.

I mean, you do. And I'm not going to sit here and take it back, because if it came out of my mouth, then, like at the time, I'm responsible for my words. I'm responsible for my actions. So, like, I own it. But I can admit and look back and be like, yeah, there was outside influences that was getting me to say certain things or like make me feel a certain type of way.

Like these people are so good at their jobs. Like that's one thing I will always love and respect about The Bachelor and their producers. They are amazing at being producers like people like I don't think they they don't get enough credit when, like, that's a hard thing to do is to get people to do what they do on that type of show and provide that type of entertainment. And I think part of me was sitting back like, man, I wish I could have handled that a little more my way.

And my by my way, was being maybe a little more thoughtful and respectful. And because you're right, I mean, you ask a girl to be your girlfriend and like, say, hey, I'm going to give it a shot. And then within twenty four hours, your mind changes. It's like, well, that's obviously a guilty conscience, you know. Yeah. It's going to have to own it.

So I don't think I mean, you don't think in any way and I'm just asking you this and. So out of curiosity. You don't think that you. Led on in any way with this BATCHELLER possibility for BATCHELLER in the back of your head the whole time, it wasn't that. That's what you're saying. No, I mean, I think I think obviously that that word was brought up before I even went to paradise, of course, without even being brought up, it was going to be in the back of my mind.

Was it at the front of my mind? No, I wasn't I wasn't saying, oh, I got to take tea on a date. I have to say this. I have to be with her for at least three days. I need to do it. Like, that was never a thing. Right. And I think that's where I maybe I get a little frustrated with people saying, like, oh, if you let her on, it's like that wasn't that wasn't my thought process.

My thought process was, OK, I'm going to give it a shot. Like you truly saw someone conflicted, like I will admit, like I was conflicted on what to do, like what to do. Do I give it another shot? Like we already had three days in L.A. in the real world, something that not a lot of people get in this Bachelor franchise. Then we had talked in face time and I still felt something was missing. And then now we have paradise and I'm still trying to figure out like what's going on here.

So I don't think no, I don't think I I led her on. I think that I always whether it was shown on camera and on the edit or not, I was always very up front with me, struggling with my feelings and where I was at with her. I respect that, I respect that answer, I think I mean, I do like my innocent, completely innocent. No, but am I guilty of. This master plan. Absolutely not, you know, like I could I definitely I definitely hiria I see.

And like everybody who said that, of course, like but I'm not I'm also not going to sit here and raise my hand and keep letting you guys fire at me. You know, I got to protect myself at some point and be like, look, that's not exactly how it went down.

You know, now just out of curiosity, is is when this all went down and then paradise was over, you went do did The Bachelor, like you said, it was one of the first people you contacted after you did Bachelor when you got back from Bachelor. Is this something that Tia is aware about, because it almost I almost feel like Tia doesn't know or TIA is under the impression that she feels like she was dragged along. I don't know, I think I mean, I can't answer that because I'm not here, but I can say, like I I did try to communicate my best before we left to go down the beach, like when we were on the beach.

It's like when we were on our dates. I always tried to communicate a being like I just like I'm struggling like she knew I was struggling with something. And I think she could at least appreciate hopefully me like trying to. To say that, I mean, she was one of the first people to know I'll say this to to you, like I got told to tell absolutely nobody that I was going to be the bachelor. And I told her I gave her a heads up like I let her know before Good Morning America, because, like, that was what I needed to do and what I wanted to do for our friendship and like what she deserved.

And yeah, I mean, I don't know if she feels it's not for me to answer, I guess, but like, I can see why she might feel some sort of way. But like, if I was to, like, talk through and she's never asked me, she's never like, put me on blast or like called me out for anything which isn't her. Like, she's not petty. She's like a really cool person. And I will say this, even in defense of her, like she got a bad rep, like she should not have taken any heat on that show of being like stop pursuing.

Like, I think she was getting called out for, like pushing me or pursuing me or doing something weird. Like she got she got unnecessary hate as well on Paradise. Yeah. Yeah.

I think I think it was because. Raven warned her and then she still did it, and then what Raven told her ended up happening.

So she gets egg on her face, seemingly, and but all she did was, you know, clearly I mean, just looking at it now, even just going over this first 45 minutes of this interview, which has basically been, you know, the Bekka season and Paradice Season five, which basically was your story, your quote unquote love story with Tilla, it's all we've talked about for 45 minutes is Tilla, we're we're going to get off that in a second because we're going to see you.

Being frustrated, too, is like the Tia and Colton show, like it was because like they literally made that whole entire season. Our storyline, which I remember being a little frustrated, too. I was like, come on, guys. Like there's actual people falling in love on this beach. You don't have to watch this mess.

Yeah, it was I remember calling it the T and Colton Show or whatever, but I also think, you know, I'm just I'm thinking about it now and I'm like. What Tia did pre show with you, you know, she flew out to see you in L.A., she comes on beka's season twice like she had nothing to gain by continually pursuing you unless she was truly interested. So that's where I'm like, wow, she was really into this guy and.

You got all the perks out of it and she got a lot of the hate now going on. You got plenty of hate as well. I'm not saying you didn't, but I'm saying like now when I think about it, like she came to see you in L.A. pre, you know, you're going on back of season. Then she comes on back a season twice to basically tell how she feels about you and then your stuff down in paradise where, you know, you tell her I want to be your boyfriend and 24 hours later changed her mind.

Wow, that is a lot now that you put her through, now that I think about it, one hundred percent and that's why I think that we're always going to like. Have this bond or this friendship, just because we both went through something together and tried to handle it. As up front and like that's one thing like I always appreciate about her, she's such a straight shooter and like I pride myself hopefully on being that to like you might not always want to hear what I have to say, but, like, I'm going to always tell you where I'm at and I always like that's what I'm trying to tell you is like I always tried to pride myself on at least doing that for her.

I never lied to her or was shady about anything because, like, that's a thing. You look at all the drama. The drama is never like calling me out for being a liar. I've never really been caught in a position of like, hey, you are deceitful or you're untruthful. Like, if anything, it was more like because you're telling us this information or because, like, this is coming out now, it makes you look a little shady.

I was like, I'd rather look shady than actually be shady, if that makes sense to you.

It seemed like it was just a lot of indecisiveness. It was just something, you know, like I was and I was confused. I was trying to figure out like what's going on here is my like my first time. And I think what people also need to, like, understand and realize this and this, I guess, can go through the whole thing. Like I went from back to back to back, like show to show, to show, like I never had a break.

And as far as filming, I don't think people, like, really realize like, I didn't I didn't really grasp the magnitude of this show and of this franchise until even my bachelor season was done. I was like realizing what I was about to step into, if that makes sense.

If you think about it, I mean, I know how the schedule goes. You film Bachelorette March and you made it to Final Four. So that was right around end of April. You basically have a month off before you head down to paradise of in twenty nineteen. You filmed for two and a half weeks down in paradise, a couple of weeks down in paradise and then. You get back from Paradise and one, your episodes with Becca are still airing and then all your season of Paradise is airing and then boom, you go in to filming The Bachelor, you know, around September 20th or so.

So it's and it was like in between that to like I always say, it's a three tier process. Like nobody nobody gets like the three thing. So, one, you go into production and like producing it itself is challenging and hard. And then you have to do all of the appearances, the carpet, the press, the promo, which I had to do for paradise, too. So, I mean, you're going into teasing and you know how this is like the caskets on and they have to talk about their season, but not really talk about their season.

So that's a beast in itself to promote it. So you have filming promotion and then you have to endure watching it and hearing the criticism and trying to to stay engaged and talk people through it and talk through your own emotions. I don't it's it's a beast that a lot of people don't realize, like what goes into it as far as just, you know, the cast to acting, having to watch it back.

Yeah. Know for sure. There's obviously a lot that goes into it. And so let's move on from paradise and start talking about your bachelor season. And this is obviously going to be a major part.

We're almost an hour into the podcast and we haven't even gotten to your season yet. So let's before the season even started, I'm just curious. And it wasn't until you and I got back in touch and started talking about this. I had completely forgotten about our Twitter beef.

And what happened was it was right around the time, I think it was like late December of twenty would have been.

I don't know what that was to your season aired in January of March of 2019. Yeah, so it would have been late 2018 and it might have been in that first week of 2019 before your season aired. I just started.

You would tweet things that were kind of just off or weird that I thought and I would just kind of troll them with my own tweets. And almost I think I was repeating what you said, but in a different. Voice, Yeah, you're like random words in the sea. All right, so this is what people don't realize.

I didn't know what happened. I don't know why I did that, I swear to you. So my social media and I guess this goes for me as a person, people feel like they know me. And I mean this and all due respect to all of the Bachelor fans, people feel like they have a really good idea of who I am. Yeah. And in reality. The show has painted me to be this super serious, emotional, maybe a little like stiff stuck up dude and.

I get why people think they know me, but. I'm I'm the most sarcastic go with the flow, sort of I like to find humor, some of my jokes land, some of them don't, some of them are appropriate, some of them are inappropriate, whatever you want to call it. I just think that's what I struggle with on social media is I'll say something. And they're like, that's not to quote me on TV. Why is he doing that?

Why is he saying it like that? That's not like that's not cool. It's like, well, you guys don't really know me. So now I'm like, at this point with social media are what I was on Twitter with you. Is this like I'm just gonna have fun with this. You know, I don't I'm not going to try to win people over. I don't need to try to, like, you know, have people understand because they're not going to through social media.

Definitely. And I yeah, I think I was like, what, pumping out like, I don't know if it was like motivational, inspirational things or, you know, sort of weird one liners and you would always come back with it. And then I remember some of the producers were coming back at me being like, stop entertaining him or don't go back to him, because I think people were starting to act like they were adding us or anything like that.

Yeah, but I always like to just try to take my pokes and my shots at you.

And I could and I and I think that I was doing it to you because it must have been because like I said, this was leading up into your first episode airing in January of twenty nineteen.

So my thought processes and I guess I could scroll back and find out, but I think I was doing it because maybe in all your preseason interviews you might have said something about me or no.

So I actually said I was taking pride and this was once again the athlete and May coming out and being like, I'm not my season's not going to be spoiled. And I thought I was going to get away with it because the way my season went down, we operated on a skeleton crew for like the last chunk of it. Just because we didn't need as many producers, we didn't need as many cameramen, we didn't need as many audio guys just because it was casini for the last few weeks.

So I was like, man, maybe it's not going to get back to you and maybe it's not going to get back and spoiled out there. So I might have a chance of beating this guy. That was just my competitive side coming out. And I think that was more so like in my interviews, I was like, yeah, nobody nobody's going to know I was pumping it up. You know, I liked the TV aspect of it. I liked the rating aspect of it.

I loved competing and wanting the show to be number one. Like that. Like that to me is so exciting. Like that's just my athletic side coming out.

And I think at that point when you started doing media, because clearly you had finished filming, you finished filming like right before Thanksgiving. So there's six weeks between The Bachelor filming and first airing. I had reported at that point, Colton Cassi are engaged and you obviously knew that wasn't right. So maybe that's what you were toying with like.

I thought maybe it was something you said, something like I was because I was totally wrong or something. Yeah, because I was right in the fact of the person you were with, I just had the wrong.

You're wrong. Yeah. Yeah. About the engaged to take my shots when I, when I.

OK, so like I said, it's a it was, it was a small thing but then you went and deleted all your tweets like a week before filming started.

I was like what is he, what is going on with this guy.

And you deleted your Twitter account. What was that about? Why did you do that?

All right. So I'll say this. I've been very public about this, I have and I haven't like my mental health, I like I said, I didn't realize. The magnitude of this show and I think the weekend that I realized it right after filming, I think it was a week after I got back to the States I. I went to Vegas with Blake and Jason, and we are getting ready to go to a Kane Brown concert and we were backstage and we went side stage before Kane even came out.

And I remember peeking my head around the curtain. And the crowd and the this is the weirdest thing ever. The crowd went nuts and I was like that was like that sort of weirdo came must be coming on. And I did it again. And finally Cain's manager came up to us and goes, hey, can you get Kolten, like, to not, like, stand in front of the curtain? Like, he's so confused by the crowd's going crazy right now.

And it was that moment that I was like I hadn't been in really in public. Like or like realize the magnitude of this show, and that's when I started experiencing my anxiety and I would start having social anxiety when I was out in public, and that was where that Twitter sort of deletion came through. As I started getting anxious and getting anxiety about every little tweet, people were reading into my past tweets. I was like, I'm just going to delete them all.

I'm not going to give people a reason to continue to have this power over me of creating this anxiety. And I went through I'll say this like a hole for my season. I had so much anxiety and so much depression that I was like throughout the majority of my season. I was I was pretty heavily medicated. I'm not going to lie like I was taking medication for anxiety and for for depression during the whole entire season while you were filming.

No, no, no. While it was what was airing was airing. OK, yeah, yeah, just because I didn't like I wasn't prepared for that, I don't think anybody really ever could be like I. I was struggling hard, you know, I just it wasn't what I thought it was going to be and I didn't know how to handle it. And of course, like, that's this me just saying, like, I know I could have done things better.

I know I could have handled certain situations better. But I I was sort of thrown and thrust it into this and I didn't really know what to do or, you know, how to handle it. What were you struggling with?

Just everybody having an opinion on you and writing it and tweets and dams. And what was the biggest thing that you had a problem with and that gave you anxiety and made you depressed? I mean, I think it's it's a combination of everything, like it isn't one simple answer, it's like everywhere I looked. Someone had an opinion of me or the show leaned so far into my virginity that. I was trying to, like, escape sort of me, and that sounds so weird because everybody is like, oh, that must have been a life.

You were the lead of a show. And like, I of course, I love it. I'm so grateful for it. And nobody wants to hear somebody who's a lead of an ABC show complain about it, but I wasn't prepared for it. So, of course, my mental state sort of took a hit and I got back on the medications to try to help cope me through. But and social and social settings for me, I, I was missing the art of like, introducing myself to somebody, like being like, hey, my name's Colton.

Everybody like they knew that and they knew everything about me or they thought they did. So they immediately didn't ask questions. They just went into telling me about me or talking to me about Tia or, you know, like just talking through everything that I've been through this last year. And I was like, man, nobody really knows me like. But they they do like, you know, it's just it was such a strange feeling that you can't really explain to people that I was just struggling with, like heavily.

So your season starts airing. And a couple of things here about your season that I want to get to before we get to the Kasey stuff is. Kind of a funny thing here, first day of the season was Hannah Brown's one on one. It happened to be on her birthday and we as an audience saw that she had trouble putting even a sentence together to give a toast. You told her to give a toast. She struggled mightily when she was ultimately selected as The Bachelorette.

Did it initially worry you like it did pretty much all of imagination, especially on the live after the final rose, that maybe she wasn't cut out or maybe she'd be too nervous for TV to shy because of one, how she how she was on that date when she couldn't even put a toast together, and then to how she was on the AFA, where she could not put more than a sentence together when she was meeting her guys. Did you ever think or was it something where you were like, I think once she settles in, she'll be fine?

I think I always knew once she settled in, she'd be fine. You could look at it and say the opposite thing for me. I think I struggled with being two media trained, like I had come from a profession in which we're taught not to give up the answer. Right. So everybody like looks at my media answers and was like, oh, he's hiding something or oh, he's manipulative or something, you know, but like that's just the profession I came out of as an athlete.

But I think for Hannah, I was excited for her because I'm like finally somebody so raw and so green and that doesn't know, you know, doesn't know anything. But just being her, like, I was super stoked and super excited for her to to get to I truly was. Well, I mean, I thought I knew I knew she was going to make good TV too.

Like, that's the other thing. It's like I, I sort of, you know, I knew Hannah Hannah is good TV, she's good entertainment, she's she's cool, she's confident. And when she's not, she shows it to like she's not afraid to just be herself.

She admittedly was like, I can be a hot mess at times. And yeah. Right. That was her. She was not great on her first one on one with you and not great on the out of the final rose. And people were just worried. And look at how her season turned out like she she killed it. So she was also involved in one of the major storylines on your season, at least in the early going. And that was the whole Kaitlyn and Hanabi know each other from the pageant world and they hate each other.

And you I remember one of the early dates, a cocktail party was canceled so you can have a pool party and the whole pool party was determining who's lying between these two or what is the what is the bottom line between these two and why are they acting the way they are towards each other? Did you ever get a sense as to who was either in the right or in the wrong, or did you lean towards one over the other in terms of believing one over the other?

See, this is where, like when fans watch the show, they're just like, oh, look, this is going to be good and as like the lead in as someone who is looking for any type of real life. Experience or drama or like confidence for a relationship. It was a total turnoff for me because I'm like, all right, so you're telling me outside of this show I barely know you guys, but like you're telling me, you guys don't like each other like it.

Just for me, I remember it just being a turnoff for both of them. I was just like over it. I was like, man, this is sort of crazy that they're going to bring the real life stuff into this, like, fantasy world. Like we're supposed to be having fun and chillin. And if you guys can't even have fun and chill here, then like, what's know? I don't know. I just think, like, that whole situation.

Was blown into something way bigger than what it even really was. It sounds silly, you even saying it like the pageant drama, you know? Yeah, but yeah, I just I remember for me, just being like, OK, like, this sort of sucks just because, you know, I don't know. I'm always going to I'm always going to be questioning now because you're you guys like the only thing I know about you are the first thing that I find out about you guys outside of this show is your pageant girls who hate each other, you know, not the best.

Not the best first impression. Yeah, no, it wasn't.

And then you move on and you're first out of country. Experience on your season was in Singapore and in Singapore.

You have your first one on one with Caitlyn. And on that date, she opens up to you about a sexual assault that had taken place in her past that happened to her, I believe it was in college when she was that when she was at VCU, that whole thing.

Probably is something that you. Maybe we're taken aback by or caught off guard, I would say, to say the least. Is there anything I remember you getting a lot of I think you've got a lot of heat, I should say. I remember specifically. But did you get a lot of heat for how that whole thing went down and how you handled it? I don't know if I got heat, what I'll say. Of course, of course, like what happened to Caitlyn and hearing her story and letting her have that platform in that moment to like stand up for herself and be honest with me, was so empowering and so great.

And I knew trying. Here's how I see it coming out of my previous relationship and going into that, like, obviously ABC and everybody respected not wanting to bring Ali back up. But in my opinion, I was like, man. This is sort of this is getting a little blurry just because now. I'm going to have to I listen like the only thing you can do is listen and I want her to listen and be there for Caitlynn and reassure her that, like, hey, this is a safe space, you know, and that's pretty much all you can do, at least in my opinion, when you're talking to someone who's been through sexual assault.

And I just wanted to make sure that. Like the show. Respected that, and I will say this as a whole, they did like I was able to see the episode before made, I was able to watch it. And I think Kailin was two just because of the like, how delicate that situation was. But I do remember being like, man. I just like I still had that feeling in the back of my mind of like I just didn't want Ali ever to be like drug into The Bachelor franchise.

And I felt like that was maybe getting tying it back to it in a weird directly or indirectly, but not directly. And, you know, they they at least I will say this. So they at least handled it with as much respect as they could in the moment.

It just was kind of hard for you to deal with 100 percent of it's it's hard because I sort of made this commitment to not only myself, but to everybody that was on set of like, look, I haven't brought this up my whole entire time on your guys, this franchise. I don't have a plan to. And in that moment, it's like I just want to listen. But I also want to I wanted so badly to relate and just be like, listen, I've been on the other side or like I've been through a similar situation, but I didn't want to because I didn't want to bring that back.

It was just so hard. It made it pretty difficult for me to navigate. And I don't know, you know, obviously I probably could have handled things better. I don't remember. I don't think I got I don't know if I got too much heat for it or what exactly how it went down. I just remember that being a very, very emotional night for me, because it obviously brought up a lot of emotions and a lot of things that I've been through and things she's been through and stuff like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was it was definitely once it was I remember when Chris Harrison was doing preshow interviews or pre-season interviews. Yeah. He was hinting at this major thing that goes down this season that we've never had before. And they were like hyping up a sexual assault almost. You know, I know it's Kailin story. And and, you know, she told the story of what happened to her, but it just seemed weird that they were promoting. Hey.

Yeah, it felt it did I hear you on that like it did promoting that type of story? It does feel and sound a little dirty 100 percent. And I don't know. I mean, I think that's what just people need to realize is there's a show and I was always very upfront and being like, I'll film your show. I'll go along with what I need to go along with for the show aspect of things. But there's going to be moments in this filming that are bigger than the show.

And that was, in my opinion, definitely one of them, where it's like enough is enough and like this is real life. Like we have to respect boundaries here. Of course, we have drama. Of course we have a show to film. But like I get it, we don't need to air. We don't need a film. We don't get to talk through everything on camera, you know.

And it also seemed like once that story got out, I think after that episode, everyone was convinced, oh, here's her bachelorette storyline like this. This girl's going to be The Bachelorette. And I don't know what happened down the road of what changed, because Caitlyn certainly was a contender for it. We know that something that didn't get shown on your season was before hometown's. The last place you guys visited before you had your hometown dates was you guys went to Denver and.

Hannah Brown, well, that's where she was eliminated. She has a date with your family, she gets you send her home on that date and. Then hometowns happen, and I believe your first hometown date was with Hannah G in Alabama, which is where Hannah Brown lived, the previews clearly showed. I mean, we freeze framed it. I put it on my site. I'm like, this is a scene of Hannah Brown. And I had been told, hey, Colton and Hannah Brown talked while he was on his hometown date or in Alabama for his hometown date with Hannah.

He has a conversation with Hannah Brown. Here's the clips. This is exactly what it's from, because you can't place Colton and Hannah Brown in a hotel room anywhere else during the season. So we knew it was that. And plus, I was telling people this was that, but there was actually visual proof of it. Why didn't I get shown that Hannah Brown talked to you during hometown dates? I don't I mean, obviously, I don't know, I'm not I'm not an editor producer, but I mean, what happened on that?

OK, then what happened? Why did she call it? Why did she want to talk to you? Closure.

I think I think for closure. Yeah. I mean, I think that the way that our our relationship ended after her spending the day with me and then I'll also preferences like my night caution with during the breakup, I was so sick like filming it, I had to take three or four breaks during dinner and before I slept, like I didn't even do like my whatever we had on the schedule, they canceled like they canceled it just to let me, like, recover.

So I couldn't really remember at the time, like, man, maybe I just wasn't clear with her. Maybe I just didn't give her the closures or the answer she needed. So I was like I was like, OK, like, let's chat. And I just don't think I don't think it came off like. Probably the best conversation for either of us, it was just more like frustrating, I think, because I took the position of, look, I'm exhausted, I have four girls or whatever I had at the time.

I'm sorry, like, I don't have the energy to put into this conversation right now. I'm mentally drained at this point, so I don't think it was just like there wasn't much that anybody was going to get out of that conversation. But I do remember. Yeah. I mean, obviously, I'm on a hometown date with Hanji and had to be there at the hotel. But yeah, I don't I don't know. I mean, there's nothing pivotal, I think.

And that's probably why there is nothing pivotal or nothing crazy that came out of it.

OK, well, we've now reached the portion of the podcast where we're going to start diving into Cassi and talking about.

The relationship with Cassie when it formed the stuff that you said in your book, the stuff that you've said in previous interviews, so let's kind of start there.

Yeah, you've made it you've made it pretty clear that there was a poor there was a time during your season filming that you realized, oh, shit, I'm not in control of anything here. And I believe you. I can't remember if you said it in your book because I am sorry I have not read your book. I've read enough excerpts from it or people have sent me stuff.

I'll have to send you a signed copy, which I realize it for you. And you you could put it you could put it up on yourself. Right. There you go.

Either either was in your book or it was in on that interview, did I believe with NPR where you basically said, I lied to the producers or I toyed with producers about who my top girls were when I started to realize I wasn't getting dates with the women that I wanted to get dates with.

Is that true or did I explain that correctly? Or what made you feel that way? And how exactly did you go about doing that? Yeah, I think that was just me. Like I said, I go from show to show to show. So now this is me getting in my head and I'll preference it with this. I'm a very I'm not a paranoid freak, but I am a paranoid person and my mind spirals. Obviously, I anxiety.

So I start thinking, OK, well, they have this they have this storyline going. I start putting my putting my producer hat on and saying, all right, this is what they want, this is what they're going for. And then like I said before, the athlete and made a competitor in me kicks in, OK, this is what I got to do. This is me game planning. This is me strategizing. This is me trying to rig my own show.

So I was like, screw this. I'm not going to be honest. I think the only person who knew exactly where my heart was the whole entire time it was was Carrie. The the show stylists like an amazing person. I love Carrie with all my heart. And I would just invent to him and talk to him about everything. And I think he got mad at me at the end of the season, too, because he's like, you idiot, you didn't tell me I was the only one to know, you know?

But yeah, I sort of just in my head was like, I'm not going to let them hurt the people or the person who I want to be with. So like I started saying, fine, I'm not going to move. Once I had my top three or top four, I'm just not going to shuffle. I'm I'm not going to move him anymore. Like, let's just keep them there and rock with it and see what we can do.

So obviously that happens at the end of every night.

All day, every day that you're the bachelor or you're the lead of the show, you're constantly talking to production and instantly answering questions, and they're peppering you with questions about who do you like and then when you're not here, miked up.

So, like, no matter what, you're who you're talking to or what's going through your head or if you're speaking out loud or if you're you're talking while you're pissing, I don't know when you're doing anything like that's what everybody's like. Oh, they know exactly what you're thinking. I'm like, yeah, because you're miked up. They have you in their ear. Like, of course they know what you're thinking. So, yeah, they know where your head is pretty much all times.

So when you were talking to them at the end of every night and they're asking you, how's it going, who are you feelin, who are you not feeling and stuff like that, you kept telling them. Hannah. She's my girl. That's the one I want. Yeah, for the most part, I mean, they obviously knew I really cared about Cassie, but I would sort of downplay it and play it a little more cautious and play it a little more cool.

But I just didn't I didn't know if they were going to continue to. You know, I didn't know what their intentions were with at all, like I didn't know, like at the end of this, I always got told, oh, you're going to get more time. You're going to get more time. You're going to get more time. And I just was still feeling uneasy about that. So I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know how they were going to treat it and how it was all going to go down.

So I did what I thought was best for me and try to protect myself, you know.

So at what point I guess now that we know that you were telling them it was Hanji, but it was behind the scenes, it was Cassi, at what point was it realized in your own head? Kass is the one I want to be with, I don't care about not you don't care about anybody else on the show. I'm sure you had feelings for flirtation and Caitlyn, but you were pretty much dead set that, you know, unless Kasey, like, has to leave because you get sick or something, I want to pick her in the end.

When did that set into you?

It was after Thailand. I mean, after my Thailand date with her pretty much all but locked it up. I mean, obviously, which was a hometown five really secured it for me, but yeah. So episode whatever it was. Episode five. Yeah, I think it was episode five. Yeah. See what people like. What was aired obviously was us making out on an island. But I think like what we were supposed to go snorkeling or scuba diving or something and the water was too murky or something.

So we pivoted but we were rain delayed almost the whole day. So all we did was just listen to country music, eat snacks and hang out off camera and on camera a little bit, but like mainly off camera. And I just remember, like, playing with her and just talking. And at one point we even got in the water together and the mikes were off and they, like everybody, was hiding for a drone shot, like an aerial shot.

So there was no audio. And she looked at me and she goes, How do you not know by now? I was like, huh? She goes, You have everybody here like, how do you not like is your mind made up? Almost like wanting asking me, like, hey, is it me, you know? And I just remember being so refreshed and being like finally like I know they told you not to ask me that question, but like, I love the fact that you just asked me that question, like even like things like that turned me on like an outcast, like in were so attractive to me of wow.

Like you do think on your own you are your own person. And that was that's what was so cool in helping me make that decision and sort of get me to commit to her. What did you tell her when she said that in Thailand, did you were you kind of like, hey, hold off or did. I laughed at first and I was like, that's not. I was like, that's not a fair question to ask me. I said that.

And then oter right in back to the dock, she apologized like three times. And she's like, I'm so sorry. I really didn't mean to put you in that position. Like, I like I know that was not cool. And I was just like, hey, it's like it's fine. I appreciate it. And I and I remember looking at me like I sort of have an idea. Like I said, I said something coyly to like because I mean, I was obviously you're always warned the blades are warned.

Don't you can't tell them because like what if your mind changes? And I think that's probably happened in a season, you would know better than me. But like where it lead tells a girl like, hey, it's you and then has a change of heart. Like, I still didn't want to make that.

Bold statement yet, I guess I don't know, but but yeah, I just remember that date and then the core thing was sick, the whole entire dinner to where she would get up and excuse herself, go throw up and come back. And I'd like look at her like I'm still kissing you. Like I still I like that's what I think I really knew. Like, I like love and was crazy about the girl because she was like throwing up all dinner.

And I was still like, I'm not wasting this time with you, you know.

Yeah. And I think that I'm sure after you after that date, you speak with producers and I'm sure they're like, wow, that when, you know, they were saying something about guys, how were you lying about Kacey after that date? Like, how did you downplay Kalsi after that?

I, I just kept I just downplaying the right word. I mean, it was I couldn't get too excited, I couldn't show my cards. And it was almost back to my, like, media train days of football of being like, OK, stay levelheaded, stay level headed, don't let them know, don't let them know. Like, this is what we're doing. And I was like, cool, I'm going to keep rocking with even a little indecisive.

So, OK, here's kind of the biggie. I tweeted this last week. I. Talked about it on my live on Sunday night with Ashley Spivey, and I said, look, and then I tweeted it or I tweeted it earlier this week that I said I have my podcast guests coming on. I was told something about six or seven months ago in reference to my podcast guests that I'm finally going to get to ask him. So I want to ask you this.

This was told to me it happened sometime during Peeta season, so January or February of this year. I was told something about your season that I was like, wow, I don't know how to take this and I'd love to know if this is actually true. And now I've got you here, so I'm going to ask it. I was told that your hometown dates, you went you had Kailin than Hanji and then Tatia. Cassie was your 4th hometown date.

I was told by somebody that before Cassie's hometown date. A producer took her father, Matt, out to lunch or dinner, took him out heading into that date and essentially told him, you need to protect your daughter because Colton is in the picture. He's picking Hannah G. True or not? Yeah, I'll say when it comes to the producers and this is where for me. Very candidly, I have mixed feelings when it comes to them and a love hate relationship with this part and with the production company because.

What I would. And not that they need to take my advice at all, but what people need to realize. That is that what happens on this show can have. Can impact the relationship down the road and off camera to, you know, and I just felt like there was certain things that happened.

That crossed the line as far as like being a TV show versus legitimately giving someone the best shot to find love, granted, if I was lying to you or not about who I was picking. I think if we're talking, hypothetically speaking, if someone took the father out, that's not OK. Like, that's not that's not cool. That's not, in my opinion, giving anyone a fair shot. So. It's it's just hard because, like, that's that's where like just very candidly with you, like, I have issues like that's where my.

Why do I take the position of being a free thinker and why I don't want to? Be reminded or associated with the franchise for the rest of my life, you know, I'll always be the Bachelor and I'm always going to be so grateful for everybody and the opportunity and the fans and all that.

But there's certain things that like Jamie and Scarr, me and I think. That's an example of something that definitely will stick with me and make me wonder and make me question things now for the rest of my life. And it's like that's that's where, like it gets so hard to express and sort of explain that, because this is my real life. And I think sometimes people skip over that, too. Yes, it's a TV show, but I have to deal with the consequences and with the words that come.

From people that are behind the scenes or people that are pulling strings, you know, and I think sometimes people forget that. Yeah, I think your answer. Answer my question, but I will say this, I mean, I'm in agreement with you, I think that. When I heard that, I was like, well, that kind of does make sense now because anybody that watched Cassie's hometown date knows that Matt Randolph ended up being like everybody's America's favorite dad for how he doubled down to protect his daughter and what he was going to say.

But it was always like, well, why doesn't every dad act like this? Will shit if that dad was just told, hey, he ain't picking your daughter. So no matter what he says to you on this date, I guess Matt could look at it as like, this is bullshit because I was just told by production he's not picking her now. It makes sense. Now, the other thing is Matt ended up getting flown to Portugal to make another appearance on the show, which I know that you've spoken out about as well, that you were not happy with.

Why weren't you happy that Matt was brought to Portugal? Because I just feel like enough is enough, like you've got to think like you can't just take Matt flying to Portugal for Matt flying to Portugal, you have to at least this is where my mind goes with it. Right? I go. OK, Tia came to Becca's season twice, Becca comes to paradise now that's coming to Portugal, so it's a bigger picture. I don't think a lot of people piece together.

I didn't I didn't piece it together until now. I was like, OK, well, yeah. So, like, when people constantly people when they when I heard that at dinner. When I heard that get dropped at dinner, there was not a producer in sight, I was looking for a producer like I was looking around and being like, all right, nobody's even showing their face to me right now because they they know. They know. I know.

And they know I'm not happy about this. I think that for me. That, for me, was another thing that I'm just like, man, I'm in over my head and. I know I'm the lead of the show, and I know I'm here to film a TV show, but. This like, you know, like it's you know, it's the things I'm going through and I still go through I went through post show, like those things all still come together, like it's still this is still life.

Right. And I don't know. I mean, not to backtrack too much, but. If I did have any regrets and I try to live with no regrets, I think one of my regrets would be asking all forefather's for their blessing. And I know that's sort of a cliche and then you're supposed to do on the show. Yeah, but it now took. It took that from me in a weird way of like it made it sort of nonchalant and for me, I didn't want to ask Matt because I had sat with him and I had read him.

Like I read, most fathers accurately, I knew he was going to say no, I mean, I knew it and I try to avoid it three or four times, but. Like you said, I have to take responsibility for the words and whatever comes out of my mouth, I completely will always take responsibility for and eventually I got. I was, you know, convinced that it was the right thing to do to ask him, and I guess just looking back now like that would be my only regret is like more so trying to keep that for myself.

At what point during the season or was it not till after the season, did you know about Casy with these with this young once show that she had filmed before she left to film your season, did you know about young ones at any point during your filming or. No. No, no, I had never I had never heard of it. OK, so she had never brought it up to you, like, hey, just want to let you know I've done reality in the past, like, did she ever.

So you didn't know, OK? No.

Did it bother you at all once you did find out?

No, because I mean, look, I did The Bachelorette and then Paradise like I loved being on TV and I didn't I didn't think that was a flag at all.

OK, I just was wondering that maybe if once you heard it, you thought, OK, well, maybe this is somebody that wants to be. On TV, on TV, that didn't that never really crossed my mind because the same people could say the same thing about me, you know? All right. So your ending was obviously way different than anything we've seen in a long time. You so was it at that point like when you. Well, we got to talk about the fence jumper.

Jesus, I don't know, Steve. I mean, you've talked about it that nasty and we know what happened. We know what you did, but. I guess the best way to ask the question is, did you actually think that you were going somewhere when you jumped the fence or was it more along the lines of I just need some time to myself? No, I I will say this, I had a good idea when I get interviewed. When I was getting interviewed, I sort of knew where the the questions were going.

I knew they were leading me someplace. I did not have a good feeling going into that date. So I actually had brought my wallet with me to the date. The only data ever brought my wallet to that was the case. That was the Cassaday. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's why you see me go up to the cabin to grab my wallet out of my bag. So I went up back into the tree for grab my wallet and passed out because Cassi had just left.

You basically said I want to because.

Yeah, because I felt like the cards were stacked against me. So I was just like, I'm done. Look at my piece, took out my wallet and I will I will say this. I had every intent to making it back to that city and to going and buying myself a new passport and to going into buying myself a plane ticket home. I was done. I mean, I but that's me. I'm a sometimes I can be very stubborn at times.

And that was definitely one of my moments where I truly did think I could have handled that on my own. Like I honestly what I would love to go back in that moment and just try it. Like, could I could I successfully escape those people and get back to the U.S.? It would be a fun, fun little game to try.

And that's that's 100 percent the athlete in you and the competitor and you, because no one else would think to do that. Nobody else would. Yeah. That's ever been in your position.

I mean, to actually call me psycho or crazy, too. I didn't want to offend me, but like I think about like I'm going back to back to back all these damn shows and I'm trying to figure out what's going on here.

And I like, you know, something kicks in, you know, and when Casy told you that she wanted to leave. I don't know, did you believe her or did you think it was? Because her dad wanted her to leave or because production was telling her, like, did you think were you so upset? And the reason you jumped the fence and got your wallet and jumped the fence was because you truly believe Casey didn't want to be there anymore, or you felt Casey was manipulated into thinking she didn't want to be there anymore.

I felt like, all right, so. I I have a hard time with this because, like I know once again, I'm responsible for the words I set the whole entire season. All I did was talk about getting engaged. All I did was talking about finding my wife. All I did was talk about this is going to work for me. And I think Cass in that moment. Didn't want to take that from me, like the I know her heart and I know her so well and that's what I've grown to love and appreciate about her is.

She does genuinely think about other people, so which she was thinking about, hey, I don't want to take this from Colton. He's wants to get engaged. I'm not there. I'm not going to be there. And up until that point, I never said to her, like, listen, I'm cool with us, just like riding this thing out. Boyfriend, girlfriend, like, we'll figure it out on the fly. I never said that.

So, like, she was only operating with the information that she had. So rightfully so. But at the same time, I did feel like her father being there was unfair. I felt like. There was just some things going on behind the scenes that maybe I wasn't fully aware of, so that's why I reacted the way I did. OK, so she, quote unquote, leaves you hop the fence. How long were you gone before somebody actually found you?

Was it really a couple hours, which is what I think. Yeah, OK.

Oh, like when when I tell you, if I would have known what direction the city was in, I'm so bad with directions. If I would have known what city, I would have made it out of there. But there was you couldn't see it because I don't think they showed it. But there was two bright lights and I didn't know which one was actually downtown or like Portugal, which one is just like a random clinical lights. So I was like walking in one direction for 50 minutes and then I'd walking back the other way, second guessing myself.

I should have just committed to our direction and gone. But I was truly hiding in ditches. I was truly hiding behind sheds and cars, which, looking back, is so dumb and dangerous. But, you know, I did it and I just didn't want to get caught. I just needed to be by myself because I. You don't get a lot of alone time on the show.

So after that happens and they talk to you, they basically say, well, what do you want to do? And you said. Essentially, I still want Cassie is she did you ask if she's still there, what because the next thing you did was eliminate Tasha and Hannah and say. Wait, OK. I told her I had told her sitting there before she broke up with me like it's you I love you. Like, did we see that it's over?

Did that was that Sean? I can't remember that. Well, you guys you guys know that now if it wasn't shown, but I'm pretty sure, like, I made that very, very well known to her saying, like, look, I'm done being the bachelor. Like, I found what I came here for.

And it might not end an engagement, but like, it's it's you. And I don't think she really knew how to take it as she knew. I was just saying that to say I think she was sort of she was sort of processing and going through things, too, of like, can I trust him? Do I know him that well?

Is he doing this for TV? I think, you know, she obviously had her wall in her guard up to just because she knew. You know, everything going on behind the scenes, too. Yeah, and we did and you know, now that you say that we did see that and then OK, but that's where she still said, I'm out of here because see, in your mind, Cassie was gone, but you still eliminated your last two women, Taisha and Hannah G.

And then you went to Cassie right back.

Yeah. So I yeah, I just basically had a conversation with them and just said, look, I'm done like it's it's Cáceres. It's nothing. And I'm just going to Dator because I'm not going to put this unreal expectation on her now. So. So yeah, we basically just came to this agreement that I'm going to get rid of Tatia and get rid of Hannah. And I did ask them to keep Matt there, too. I was like, I sort of want to talk to Matt, too, while he's here.

Like, well, I got them. Yeah, I want to talk to the dude.

And we never saw that until you spoke with Cassie and then the two of you saw him. But I think at this point, a lot of people are looking at it like and, you know, the narrative probably since that day in Portugal when you guys left the show as a couple. I'm sure you've heard it throughout your whole relationship, Colton is more into Cassie than she's into him because of the way it went down in Portugal.

Is this like he did all this stuff for her, yet she wanted to leave and then he basically put her in a position not that you forced her to do anything that she didn't need to do. But when you come back to her in a position like, look, I just got rid of the other two girls, I just want to be with you. There is a portion of America, a lot of them, including myself, that almost felt.

Well, God, Cass is going to be the most hated woman in America if she says, you know what, Colton, even though you did that for me, I'm still good. No, I want to be single. Like, I almost felt like she had to, but not in a bad way. It just felt like she would have been crucified and been the most hated woman in America. If after you did that and let the other two women go and told her, I just want to be here for you, she still said no.

Now it got people thinking, OK, she only did it because he there were no other options left for him. He let the other ones go. Did you ever feel that in your relationship? No, and I wouldn't have done what I didn't do if I wasn't in the relationship and felt. Where she was struggling with what she was struggling with, I don't think she ever struggled with her feelings towards me. She just struggled with the concept and not having her father's blessing and continuing to move forward.

I think that's what was really bugging her, was just like my dad said, no.

This dude really wants to get engaged and just told me it's me now, like I can see where she was coming from, but like, I definitely never I never questioned, you know, I never questioned her intent or how much she loved and cared for me. I felt it. I knew it. And I herea but like, when you're in the relationship, I didn't feel like I was putting her in an unfair position of being like, look, I just sent everybody else home to you.

What do you say? Yes or no? Like, I already knew it was going to be. Yes, I knew it was going to be. Yes, because I knew she was struggling with me being in a relationship with two other girls. And at that time, I was like, why am I even doing this? Why risk losing the girl I want to end my season with? Because I'm supposed to be the bachelor. Like, that's not cool, you know?

Yeah.

So essentially the show ends. You don't film an engagement or there was no engagement, which I ended up changing and getting that right.

Um, yeah, I although you guys. You guys. At the time. When you were still out there filming, before I even announced the spoiler to the season. Production and you got a little tricky by filming a scene on a castle with an empty ring box that they were going to run during promos to make people think that there was an engagement happening. Yet when the season played out, you never showed up anywhere.

We never even saw a scene of you in a castle, except that promo you did you didn't know. We I mean, we got to see a really cool castle. Yeah. Because I had all the coloring books. Yeah.

OK, so the other thing is this is something I want to touch on because we've pretty much cleared your season now except for your women tell all because this has come up. It came up on Rachel's podcast, not with you on it, but it was it was brought up, I believe, when Rachel maybe had Caitlyn on and it was Blake she had Blake on. So your season is airing during January through March of 2019 and.

So what? OK, so wait a second. Women tell all tapes around end of February, a couple of weeks before your finale airs, you have to go tape your women, tell all and Caitlyn is on your women, tell all just bawling her eyes out about you or the way she kind of I don't know, maybe this is the wrong phrase, but I think she kind of threw you under the bus for how you treated her or how you made her feel when you dumped her on your season.

However, when Paradice played out.

It in twenty eighteen the summer before, and Blake was telling his story publicly and in interviews and on his Instagram story. We now know that Blake and Caitlyn were involved with each other. Clearly, during that time where you were filming your women tell all. So it kind of made Caitlyn well, not kind of it did make her seem completely fake because at that time she was basically going off on you on your women tell all she was in the middle of seeing Blake.

That Drew. It's kind of how it played out, right?

Yeah. I was not very happy with that. The mental. Yeah, because, I mean, I had I had a cast and I had been hanging out with at that time, like Blake and Caitlyn, like with all four of us hung out.

So I'm like sitting here like really like what are you doing? Like we literally just all ate dinner the other night and like hung out. And I was like, really? But yeah, that was a little that did catch me off guard quite a bit. But you know it and not to like in her defense, but in her defense, I had been on the other side. I've been to a mental in which I had to. Tap into emotions that you normally don't want to revisit.

Yeah, you know, I'm my Jordan Bass. You know, like at that time I had already been in paradise with Jordan, like, we were cool. So, like, I try to put myself in a position of, like, OK, maybe a producer, just talk to her and was like, listen, you have to get emotional. You have to talk about this. Or, you know, I try to show her some grace with that.

But yeah, I mean, obviously I wasn't ideal for for any of the parties involved at the time.

Plus, at that time, she was technically still up for Bachelorette because, yeah, Hannah hadn't been named as bachelorette at that point.

I don't think by your mental it was. Yeah, I think she was I think she was a favorite at that point. But so that could have played into why Caitlyn did what she did. Just hey, here's her bachelorette audition. You know that she has the story that she told them on their date and now here she is moving to. OK, so we've got that out of the way. That's pretty much what I thought. There's obviously some book stuff that I want to get to.

Just the fact that, you know, you released a book in March, first time Finding Myself Looking for love on reality TV. I'm going to link to it when the podcast goes up. And you talked a little bit or briefly earlier about your mental health. And this is something I wanted to ask you about. It made news. It made a little news, but it was brought to my attention at the time that it happened when your show was airing.

So I don't know if it was in January or March or January or February of twenty nineteen. But at some point when it was airing, you had an event down in San Diego where you showed up to an event, I believe other there were other actual people there, but somebody that was at that event said, hey, I remember getting email that night saying, Hey Steve, I was at this event that Colton was the featured guest at, and he walked out on the event in the middle of it and gave us all a lecture.

Essentially, I was really pissed off at the way he was being treated at this event and left the event an hour early. I think he got picked up by a few stories. But can you explain exactly what happened and what that was all about?

Yeah. I mean, now I know for a good reason why bachelor and bachelorettes don't do appearances during their season just because of how intense the fans are and how cool. Like, I don't know just how the the people flock to those things, but I had a charity event scheduled for my non-profit which ended up raising a lot of money for cystic fibrosis, which was great. But it was a night in San Diego and. I was already struggling with social anxiety pretty bad, and I invited, I think, back in Garrett where there Tanner, Tanner and Jad, just a lot of people showed up to show support.

Blake came by. And I was walking. To one of the pictures spots, and I had a girl and I had security with me at that event, but I had a girl come up to me and I just thought it was like a friendly hey, my name's nice to meet you.

And I remember, like, seeing her and stopping to, like, say hi. And she said, I'm here to take your virginity and literally wound up her hand with an open fist and grab my package full on, like locking eyes with me. And I just remember feeling so. Powerless and so. Such like a piece of meat, and I just like that for me was like a big. Turning point in my mental health of like, wow, I have no clue what I'm in for right now, and this is it got pretty bad, it got dark and like, I played it off fine as far as like in front of people, at least I thought I did.

Maybe I didn't. Now that I know that you knew, but I did leave. I was like, I can't be here. I can't be in this mindstate right now. And I ended up driving back up like literally that night. I drove back up to my house in L.A. at the time. And I was like by myself. I was like, I couldn't do it. I couldn't stick around. I couldn't stay around after that. But I think that, like, what I was saying about earlier is, you know.

It wasn't my choice to lean into my virginity storyline like that was never, of course, I brought up, brought it up and of course, it got played that I talked about it so much and. Very vaguely, I'll say this just because I have I've thought about it and I've grown so much from like looking back at the past, it's not easy for me to talk about that just because. Is it wasn't just one thing that led to make.

Making that choice like there's it's a very complex and but what I'll say is the way that the show put it out there, sort of. Had consequences, i.e., that night or people poking fun or making jokes out, that sort of hit me a little deeper than what most people might think they do. Obviously, grabbing a man's package without his consent is obviously definitely overstepping the line.

But, yeah, that was definitely something for me that provided a big turning point in my mental health when like we said, you said during your season when it was airing, you were on medication for anxiety and depression and then something like that happens in the middle of it. Probably wouldn't help matters now.

Yeah. And I just remember like that just all came up, like around the same time. And it just was an overwhelming sort of experience.

And obviously the virginity thing was a storyline that played out all throughout your three shows that you did. You know, you talk about it in your book. And then the other thing you talk about in your book, and I think this is something that you can agree probably is going to follow you for a long time. I know it's even been brought up since your breakup with Cassie. I know that I've been asked about it numerous times, not even asked about it.

I've been told like people's opinions. And I know that you've heard it from the second you've been on Becky's season through Paradice Season five, through your time on The Bachelor is Colton is gay like you've heard it. I know you've heard it. I've heard it a thousand times. And I know it's something that you have to deal with and. I can't imagine that has been health healthy for you mentally, and when you hear stuff like that and when you hear, oh, Kotlin, Casey broke up because Colton's going to announce that he's gay or something to the best of your ability, how do you deal with that?

Yeah, I mean, in regards to those rumors, I mean, I addressed it pretty heavily in the book and I've gone through it, you know, throughout my whole entire life. And of course, it doesn't it doesn't help being on a national stage for the mental health aspect. But I mean, the bottom line is, you know, I'm not gay. I have love and support for anybody in the LGBTQ community and support that. And love is love at the end of the day.

So so, yeah, I mean, that's about it.

You know, it's it's funny because it's a simple question. You just gave a simple answer. No, but unfortunately, we know there are people out there that already have it in their head that you are and you know what their response to that is going to be. Well, of course, he's going to say he's not what's going to come out on a podcast of all the times he could like. And that's the unfortunate thing. And that's the thing that I'm talking about.

Like, it's got to be tough to deal with something like that, because even your answer that you just gave where it's like, no, I'm not some people are still going to say, well, of course he's going to say that.

Yeah. I mean, and I think I've realized that now over how many years, you know, being in a college locker room and, you know, having, you know, made the decisions I decided to make. I mean, I've heard it since then. So, you know, I'm sort of used to it at this point, but I don't think I'm ever going to give a good enough answer. I'm always going to almost feel like I'm on the fence probably for a very long time.

And correct me if I'm wrong, your choice to be a virgin. Is is not religious right. It is something where I thought I thought in an interview in the past, I've heard you say I'm when I find the right person to have my my heart, it was always about just finding the right person. It wasn't a religious thing where you were saving yourself for marriage no matter what or or was it?

It started off of that. I think that's and I did I'll take the blame for this because I did not do the best job articulating this, because I don't think I was ever prepared for it to be this prominent. Yeah, but I grew up in a Catholic church. I grew up going to church twice a week and having religion class at eight a.m. every day for grade school and all the way, you know, till my sixth grade year. And I grew up in a family that, you know.

I grew up in a family that I never we never had a divorce in my family other than my parents, and then when that happened, that affected me and I was in college at that time. And that's maybe when that's supposed to happen. Right. And I just remember when my parents got divorced, I took it so hard and I was like, screw this. I'm not even worrying about a relationship. I'm only going to focus on football.

And I think that's where it throws people off. They're like, you're telling me you're too busy to go get laid because you're playing football. And it's like, yeah, I don't think people realize, like as a as a college athlete, I slept through house my own house parties. Like, I, I was never the most gifted athlete. I was never the most talented, but I always did the little things and I always brought to the table attribute that maybe other teammates didn't.

And that was just my work ethic and trying to stay focused on football. So, yeah, for me to perform at that level, I had I had to stay focused on football. So there was a lot of little things that went into that decision. But I will say my my statement of, look, I'm just looking for a heart and for someone that's completely accurate, I'm OK. I mean, yeah, it's not completely religious, OK?

And, you know, we we haven't even touched on the the incident from a few weeks ago where Kasey goes on the goat show and is asked two different ways about her relationship with you, the breakup. She doesn't reveal anything about your breakup. I thought she was rather private about it and basically didn't give Chris Harrison what we knew he was all going to ask and. A couple of days later on Instagram, you seem to put out an Instagram post that threw shade at.

Cassie, it was clearly directed at her when you said. Things changed this week, then she took to Instagram her Instagram story that night. To basically say, what are you talking about, I didn't say anything about our relationship, and I think that's where I was confused. I know that's where Ashley Sparboe was confused.

We talked about it on our live and everyone was really questioning why you initially came out and said after Kasey went on the show, why you came out and said what you did when she didn't reveal anything about your breakup.

Yeah, so in regards to my post, yeah. I. Was more directing that towards Bachelor, and here's why. They never asked me to be on that show, which is fine, because I obviously had my falling out with them and we're not in a good place. So like a completely fine and I've sort of distance myself from them just for my own mental health right now. I mean, there's just been too many things that I've found out about and that has happened for me to feel comfortable working with them again on a professional level, not even personal.

But yes, I completely agree with you, Kaskade, extremely professional and extremely, you know, this quiet about our breakup, which I was so happy and thankful for, and I even texted her. I said, man, I appreciate that. Like, thank you. What bugs me? Was the fact that that show. Took advantage of her. I get very defensive over people I love and. I know cast is a big girl and she could fight her own battles, but I just know, like I said, I know her heart and she doesn't want to rock the boat.

And she loves people even if they abuse her or even if they take advantage of her, which is what they did because they they sold her on come on our show. Talk about this season and. You know, we'll catch up, we'll get to know about education, we'll get to know about your tattoos, like we want to know you, we want to know you. And I was like, that's not what they're going to do to you.

Like, I sort of said that. And I was like, you know, I wasn't here to tell her what she can and can't do. That's just not who I am. So I was like, do it. But I'm just warning you, this is what's going to happen. They're going to point questions in my direction. And I don't care how long you talk to them, they're only going to air the parts about us or me.

Yeah, which is exactly what they did, which is what they did. And I think that's that's more so where my frustration came in at a being like man. Like. You just gave like it was more so like like I knew this was going to happen, I was more frustrated for her just because she just got completely taken advantage of and completely manipulated. And I think she took to her story. So we say that and I was proud of her for saying that because those people sold her on.

Come in, come in, let's let the audience get to know you, the real Casey, and then you have Chris Harrison pointing questions, saying, I sense you don't want to make Colton mad or you're afraid you're going to upset Colton. And it's like, no, Chris, like, I literally talked to her the morning of that interview, like, we're good. Like, don't stop worrying about me or painting me to be this controlling or angry person.

I'm not angry. If there's anybody I'm upset about or upset with, it's you guys like you're going to have. My I like the X on. The show over your lead, which I completely get like we're not in a good place, so, like, I don't know, it just the whole thing with the franchise and you know, them interviewing her is what really bugged me and really upset me. But then for the rest of the post, you know, I think just addressing like what we said before, you know, there was rumors coming around that, oh, they're not talking about their break up because he's coming out as gay or because he's cheating on her or cheated on her or because he's seeing somebody else.

Like, I just felt like I had to rip the Band-Aid off and sort of clear the air. And it was never intended to take a shot at Kasey or to. Have people read into it, it just sort of, you know, it was just me sort of setting the standards, being like, hey, this is you know, this is me. I know I don't have this opportunity to talk to you guys. So I'm going to take this, you know, take the social.

But she's she said she seemingly took it as a personal thing because then she went on her Instagram story and called you out for like, hey, you're adding a new chapter to your book. You didn't even consult me on it. Explain what that was all about and what is going on with this extra chapter in your book. What is going to be in this extra chapter of your book? When is it being released and how it relates to what Cassie said that night?

Yeah, I mean, look, the the post that she put out. I mean, maybe eventually we'll address it together, like we handled it privately. It should have been handled privately and we did handle it privately and sort of left it at that.

But as far as, like what the book was, it is like the chapters done, I wrote the chapter and. She saw it and was OK with it and we made changes. I say we I know it's my book, but like. You know, there was more I think that was the other thing I would like to clear up, too, is like there's more than just the breakup that was going to go into the book, like that extra chapter.

I mean, look, I had to promote my book literally weeks after having covered. So I had gone through this really weird time and I sort of did it publicly again. Once again, I don't know if that's my fault or whatnot, but like I documented sort of what I was going through, how I was feeling, and I was very transparent with it. But I also wanted to share that in my book of how I navigated that. So there was more than just it wasn't a chapter just about the breakup or just to get back at anybody.

It was more so just like, hey, this is, you know, something that I talked to the. A company about and I have a new paperback version coming out and, you know, in twenty, twenty one in January and I want people to. To hear here from me, you know, and so that chapter. It sounds like. Cassie is fine with it, even had a say in whatever that chapter is going to be about.

Yeah, that that's a fair statement. The chapter is the chapter is part breakup, part me having covered and. We go into the details that we're comfortable sharing in the book and in that chapter, and we both. Went over it together and look, I have nothing but good things and love and well wishes and a friendship with Cassie right now. I love the girl and miss the girl dearly. I mean, she's amazing. So there's nothing crazy going on that's for people to read into, you know.

Yeah. And, you know, I mean, just reading between the lines, it sounds like, you know, people are just going to have to wait a few more months to maybe get to maybe get their answer as to why Colton and Kasey broke up. But it sounds like it's going to be a not a one sided hey, here's my version of events. And then Cassie would have to release something on her, you know, an Instagram page or an Instagram story.

And, you know, this sounds like this was more of a collaboration of, hey, let's let's finally put this go as far as I'll go, as far as say and I honestly, I think her being a part of it made it even better because, you know, in parts where parts where I put in my book, like maybe Cass was feeling this or maybe she was feeling that, she told me how she felt and she tells everybody how she felt.

So it was I think was therapeutic and good for both of us. Just sort of get that out.

Yeah, that's good. I mean, I think, yeah, people probably don't want to wait till January 20, 21. You're going to. I understand. I completely understand.

A couple of things I want to wrap up with here as we cross the two hour mark.

I know I told you was going to be long. I knew it was real quickly, you know, right after that happens.

Here comes Colton with another public, quote unquote, relationship that gets caught by the paparazzi if you want to come. I'm going to ask you about it. How you want to answer is up to you.

What's the deal with Lucy Hale? Is this a relationship? Are you guys buddies? Was it a dumb slide and you guys just decided to hang out? Is this kind of a semantic Christley thing where it's just like, oh, you know, this, you know, I'm single.

And someone asked me to hang out and I said, yes, well, a girl who, by the way, in interviews in the past, clearly made it known that she was into you back before back before I think you were over The Bachelor.

So, yeah, I mean, I know you have to ask, but as far as like Lucy and I have no comment on that right now, I will say in regards to my post, like, that's probably why I had to make my post is like I started seeing other people. I started dating other people. So it's like it would have been weird for me to not address it post my breakup post and have people see me out with other people like that.

And my opinion was something that I needed to mention and just to give people a little bit more ideas or idea of why.

OK, so that I know that's fair enough. And I know it's just a thought. Real quick on, obviously, we don't have all the details of what the hell is going on in Lakita right now. But we kind of know by all accounts, Tatia, a girl that made the final three on her season, has become bachelorette. Your thoughts on Tatia being a bachelorette in this franchise? Even though he's going to be great, even though she took a little bit of a backhanded shot at you, what did she say?

No, you know, you did of her when I don't even know who was back in it.

You were pretty blunt about the fact that what was the exact line that you gave when this all came out? Oh, the kids thing that was that was all in good fun. Yeah, because in paradise she had I guess I didn't watch Paradise, but I had been sent a clip of her saying I was a bad kisser. So I pretty much just like, good luck. I hope you find yourself a better kisser or something, you know? And that was all in good fun and well wishes, I actually think is going to be great.

She's very direct. She's very mature, and I think she knows what she wants. So I think she's going to be good and I think she's going to be really good. And I think I wish her and anybody else who doesn't show nothing but the best, I really do so.

And if you had advice to give them would just be like I had advice to give her would be I would be a long list now. It would it would more so just be like stand up for yourself. I mean, you have a life to live. That's what I always try to tell everybody. Like, what I was, you know, trying to get through to Peter is like, do you have to live with this the rest of your life?

You're not going to be the bachelor for the rest of your life. You're going to be Peter. You're going to be Colten. You're going to be Teisha. You're going to be whoever you are. So just stand up for yourself, put your foot down when you need to put it down.

And finally, besides your book being rereleased in 2021 with an added chapter, your non-profit organization. Yep. Tell us what's going on with that. The latest with that. Anything going on, any events. I know it's kind of hard to hold events during covid, but what to expect out of that?

Well, we're still we're doing it. We actually just hit our forty thousand dollar mark. We did a virtual fundraiser just to get people move in and we're still giving best away. And I just had a Xoom call yesterday, actually, with our Idaho recipient. So we're still pushing forward. And my foundation is unique and I don't think that's ever got brought up either. It's like we're not a huge moneymaker. But what we do is we partner with companies and corporations and try to connect to the right people.

I find, you know, I'm in rooms with this very successful and very well connected people. So that's what my nonprofit really focuses on, is helping families and helping individuals living with cystic fibrosis. So we have a fun, cool year planned with that. And yeah, I'm very proud of sort of how far that's come and grown and continuing to grow.

Do you have a goal of how many vets that you want to or plan to give out in any given calendar year veterans of that?

So. Oh, in a calendar year? No, it all depends. I mean we're doing fifty one for each state, so.

OK, well, Colton, this was. This was enlightening, to say the least. I'm glad we got to do it. I'm glad you reached out to me. I don't know if I you know, there was a there was a part of me that was just like I don't know if I would reach out to a guy like Colton to come on the podcast only because I just assumed, well, look, he knows I wasn't a huge fan of things that he said dead.

And now that I've heard some answers and things make a little more sense to me, it's like, OK, you know, like I said, I never hated you.

It was just I think that was like one thing for me to racing out is like, you know, I have had a lot of time. Over the last month to really think about the past and how far I've come and how I've grown and who I want to be as a person and doing this interview with you, too, it's a way for me to sort of get back to The Bachelor fans, because I do know, like, I don't want people to think like I'm not.

Happy. You know, I'm not happy with the franchise. I'm jaded in a certain way, like I still have a, you know, an appreciation or love for Bachelor Nation and everybody who's been there to support and love. And this was sort of just a way to wrap up this chapter. Now, I know I said that with the book, but now it truly is just because, you know, I have my other my last chapters done after the book.

I'm sort of moving on and I have some cool projects that I'm working on and some TV stuff coming out. So I'm excited for that.

Yeah, well, good luck with all that. I really appreciate you coming on and doing this for two hours. It's probably the second or third longest podcast I've done in a hundred and ninety five of them.

So I really appreciate you doing this. You answered you answered everything I fired at you. I hope we covered everything. I mean, outside of outside of you getting, you know, you know, having covid and going through that and living at the Randolph's at the time, I think we pretty much covered everything that I that I wanted to. And yeah, you know, that part the covered part is covered in the book. So people will get that then.

And, you know, I wish you all the best again. I appreciate you reaching out to me and good luck in the future. And we'll definitely we'll definitely be in touch.

I appreciate it. Thanks, man. You got a good night, but. Well, I think Colton for that, I hope you all enjoyed it. It was a guy that I never thought I would talk to. I'm glad that I did. And it's one of these things where. You have a certain perception going in on somebody, and it's not like Colt and I are going to be BFC the rest of our life, but I think.

Look, I might be biased here, but I don't think anybody that sat there and listened to two hours and 10 minutes of Kolten answering every question I peppered at him can be like, oh, he's an asshole or he's a total phony or he's a fame or. Agalloch. I think that there was a lot in there, and I guarantee you, if you're really being honest with yourself, I guarantee you. If you listen to the whole thing, it didn't skim it and didn't just look for stuff, which I know a lot of you do, if you listen to every question that's asked of him and every answer that he gave.

I just don't know how you can think he's this just or awful, horrible human being. And certainly I have a different perception of him now. He's a lot more open than I thought he would be. And. He's a lot more calculating, but in a good way than I thought he was. So I really I was kind of blown away by the interview and glad I talked to him and I'm glad you all got to talk to him. And it's not like if you had one opinion, I expected you to do a 180.

But I really do think if you listen to the whole thing, you have a better idea of, wow, I may have misjudged this guy.

Because I certainly did not be the first to admit it. You know, I. Every beef that I had with him over the last two years, things that I tweeted out, things that I said in podcast, things that I wrote, I addressed with him, and he would stand up about all of it.

So that's all I can ask. But he's a guy that I didn't think would come on just because. I thought there there's a certain faction that are like, look. People that I'm critical of, if I know that they can't be open and honest about themselves and have a little self-awareness, there's no point in me putting them on. And once I got to talk to Colton after he reached out to me and we spoke a couple of times, I was like, OK, he gets it.

He doesn't take himself too seriously and. It'll be easy to ask him the questions that I want to ask him, because I know he'll be honest, and if he ever tried to bullshit me, I would have called him out on it. But he answered every question. And I can only go off of his answers, I didn't really think any of his answers were bullshit, I really didn't. So I hope you enjoyed it. There was a lot of fun and.

Just really happy he came on and, you know, that question that I asked him? Like I said, I found out six months ago that a producer took Cassie's husband, Cassie's husband, Cassie's father, out to dinner before her hometown date and said, you better protect your daughter tomorrow because Colton's not picking her, is picking her energy. And you could tell by Colton's answer. Obviously, he found that out after the fact. While he was in a relationship with Cassie, at some point, I'm guessing the Randolph's told him that's what happened.

You could tell at that point is probably where he lost any sort of trust in. Production, look, we all know they're making a TV show, but when you do something like that, regardless of if they felt that Colton was lying to them about who is top girl was to flat out either lie or mislead the family into believing one thing when the other thing was true. It clearly shows that they don't care about any sort of love story on the show if they get one, great, but they're there to make a TV show and cause drama.

And the bottom line is Cottenham had three pretty. Scott free hometown dates already with teacher Hannah. And Caitlyn and it's almost like crap, we've had three great hometown dates, how do we spice up interest in this fourth one? And a producer goes and takes her dad out and says he ain't picking her, you might want to protect her tomorrow. And what did Matt do, Matt Randolph do in that hometown date? He was he became an icon.

He became a figure I was calling a Matt fucking Randolph. And then it becomes part of the storyline again when they fly him out to Thailand. I mean Portugal. So you can see this is I if I were in Colten shoes, I would be livid with production as well. And it seems like that's where Colton is right now, it's probably why he wanted to talk to me. The people that are going to come and talk to me are usually people that aren't thrilled with production or people well out of contract, Coltons out of contract.

But he's also hates production, seemingly. I can't thank you enough for coming on, I hope you all enjoyed it. Please read, subscribe and review an Apple podcast. Much appreciated. And that'll do it. That was a lot of fun over two hours. I hope you all stayed through it. I hope you didn't scare him. Hope you didn't just try and find the Tea Party. I hope you really listened to the interview and and learned something from it.

I certainly did so for comment. What a reality, Steve. Thank you all for tuning in. Podcast number one seven ninety six coming next week and we'll talk to you then.