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Colton Underwood, this season’s star of The Bachelor, actually quit the show at one point during shooting, according to Entertainment Tonight, after a promo clip emerged showing a preview of the 26-year-old walking off set, jumping a fence, and seemingly quitting The Bachelor before the season finale.
“I was gone for a while. In that moment, and the feelings I was feeling, I left the show. I needed time to myself,” Underwood told ET, explaining why some Bachelor promos featured storming away from cameras while telling host Chris Harrison, “I’m f–king done.”
Underwood didn’t reveal how long he was gone for, but according to ET, he was missing long enough for Harrison and the Bachelor production team to go searching for him in the middle of the night.
“I’m a resourceful guy!” he told the outlet. “I’m in Colorado, right? I know how to make a little bonfire, fight off some coyotes or whatever we got to do.” Although Underwood laughed off the situation and reinforced that he was staying on the show, he said the incident was a result of things becoming “a little overwhelming.”
“I don’t want to say anything [about leaving the show] and have it taken out of context. I want you guys to be on the roller coaster with me… it’s just a roller coaster of emotions,” he shared.
Underwood also sat down with Jimmy Kimmel in January to discuss his season of the ABC franchise. “I think you’re the first Bachelor to attempt an escape,” Kimmel joked, to which Underwood replied: “I will say that at that moment, I was done [with the show]. I don’t want you to take it out of context but that jump was very meaningful.”
The bachelor apparently changed his mind and decided to stick it out, although he says he was pushed to his limit at one point during the season, and that there was “no more Bachelor.” Robert Mills, ABC’s Senior Vice President, Alternative Series, Specials & Late-Night Programming, even said he was somewhat excited to hear that Underwood was considering quitting, as it would have been a first on the show.
“To be honest, I got kind of excited,” he told Entertainment Tonight. “It’s something we’ve never seen before. To be more than 20 seasons in and have something new that no one’s seen before play out is actually great. The other thing you think about is — is he OK? Whether this ends up with him engaged, married, single, dumped, you want to make sure he’s OK. … You never want this to be the biggest mistake of someone’s life. … We just let it play out real, and then we figure out the rest.”
Although Underwood didn’t completely quit the show, he does end up doing things his own way in the end involving the remaining contestants. Tune in tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT and 7 p.m. CT, on the ABC network to continue following Underwood’s story.
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