ABC's Bachelor franchise has seen a lot of new developments in recent months. Following a public controversy and substantial payout, Chris Harrison was replaced by Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristowe on The Bachelorette, and rotating celebrity hosts will be brought in for the next Bachelor in Paradise. Now, in the midst of all the changes, one of the most notorious Bachelor Nation alums, Colton Underwood, is getting blunt about his relationship with the franchise.
Colton Underwood, who came out as gay in April, participated in several iterations of the ABC franchise over the years, such as The Bachelorette Season 14 and The Bachelor Season 23, on which he was the lead. In his last stint, he shockingly named Cassie Randolph without a proposal, but their relationship would later come to a dramatic close after reports surfaced of Underwood supposedly stalking her. Judging by his since-deleted blunt comments on Instagram (via Page Six), though, it appears the alum’s relationship with Bachelor Nation as a whole is done for good, too. Underwood wrote:
please stop lumping me in with the bachelor. I don’t fuck with them anymore, they don’t fuck with me. Point blank.
It's hard not to “lump” Colton Underwood in with other Bachelor Nation alums, given his notoriety from his appearances on the franchise. But apparently, knowledge of Underwood’s ire at Bachelor Nation manifested after he was included in reports about ProPublica's records on several alums who took advantage of the U.S. government's Paycheck Protection Program.
As reported by Vulture, newly minted Bachelorette host Tayshia Adams received $20,833 in her bailout loan. The Bachelor’s Season 22 star Arie Luyendyk Jr. and his wife got roughly the same amount. Colton Underwood was mentioned as receiving a $11,355 PPP loan but that it ultimately went to his cystic fibrosis charity, the Colton Underwood Legacy Foundation. Still, it seems Underwood didn’t appreciate the assumptions being made about having a PPP loan for his charity. He also wrote in the deleted post:
My non profit filed for a PPP because we cancelled our charity events for the year. We help people living with CF. I don’t make a dime from my non profit.
Still, it's curious that Colton Underwood is now using such strong language against the Bachelor franchise. When the alum came out as gay in April – making him technically the only openly gay contestant in the show’s history – many online first enthusiastically reacted by calling for a LGBTQ-focused season of the ABC franchise, with Underwood possibly starring as the first lead. At the time, Underwood said he wasn't in the position to do so currently but didn't rule it out entirely, either.
Perhaps Colton Underwood is leaving his frequently controversial Bachelor history behind him now, as he puts more focus on his Netflix reality show, which is set to focus on his coming out as gay. (It’s allegedly premiering sometime in the fall.) Nevertheless, Underwood isn't the only alum seemingly done with ABC's popular franchise. Catherine Giudici revealed last week that her husband Sean Lowe (The Bachelor, Season 17) is actually boycotting Katie Thurston’s Bachelorette season in solidarity with Chris Harrison.
The Bachelor Nation franchise has a lot of moving parts and players, to be sure. So many, in fact, that if what Colton Underwood is saying is true, it may not necessarily want or need to associate with him, either.
