Colton Underwood is setting the record straight.
During an appearance on the “Boyfriend Material” podcast with host Harry Jowsey, the former Bachelor addressed rumors that he stormed off the reunion set of The Traitors — and shared a deeply personal loss that unfolded while cameras were rolling.
When Jowsey brought up the speculation, asking, “I did see there was some tea saying that you stormed off set. Do you want to clear it up when you’re filming that?” Underwood didn’t hesitate.
“Yeah. I mean, I don’t always have time to go back and forth and say, ‘This is true, this is not true,’ but I did not storm off of the set,” he said.
According to Underwood, what viewers and online commentators interpreted as drama was simply a scheduled production break.
“There’s planned, as you know, as reunions are filming, there’s planned breaks and when they bring new people out and position them, you have 10 minutes of downtime, so everybody stayed in their seat and I just went out and my team was there, so I talked to them and had water.”
He added, “There’s a lot of spin that’s happened on this season. I’ll just say that and I’ve sort of just been sitting there taking it and I’m exhausted. At this point of my career, I don’t have time to go online and combat every negative or just quite frankly lie that’s out there about me. It’s just also not good for my mental health either.”
But the reunion rumor wasn’t the only narrative he wanted to correct.
Later in the episode, Underwood revealed that while filming episodes four and five — including the tense confrontations involving castmates Tiffany and Michael — his father-in-law passed away.
“What people don’t understand is while I was filming episode four and five… my husband’s dad passed away,” Underwood shared. “So I’m dealing with, you know, talking to my husband. He’s telling me to stay and finish the show. He’s grieving, so I’m not sleeping a lot. I’m like a wreck. Didn’t even get to say goodbye to my father-in-law. It was an emotionally draining experience.”
He explained that production allowed him time to step away when needed. “They were pulling me, like even on set, and the production company was great. They gave me every opportunity when my husband needed to talk to me, they would come and get me and I would talk to him.”
Still, he chose not to tell his fellow castmates what was happening behind the scenes.
“I didn’t really have anybody to talk to in the castle because I didn’t want to tell my other castmates what I was going through at home because I didn’t want them to think I was staying on the show because I was a traitor,” he said. “I didn’t want to put any doubt into anybody’s mind of being like, ‘That’s weird. If I had a family member that was passing away, I would leave the show.’”
The emotional toll, he admitted, showed on camera.
“That’s also why everybody’s like, ‘He has crazy eyes.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, because I’m sleeping one hour a night and I’m f—ing crying.’”
When Jowsey suggested it may have been bittersweet to be banished and finally return home, Underwood agreed.
“That was what I kept telling him. I was like, ‘Look, as soon as I’m gone, we got to get me on the first flight out so I can get home to my family.’ It was definitely bittersweet where I was like, ‘Okay, I’m playing a game, aggressively, like proactively enough that maybe I can get murdered or I get to go home to my family.’”