Treachery is all part of the game of The Traitors, which has been airing the new episodes of its fourth season weekly on the 2026 TV schedule for the past month. However, this time, it’s extended online so much that Peacock issued a statement asking fans not to resort to “cyberbullying and harassment”. Now, Colton Underwood has shared details as to what happened from his side of the screen, and how it went “too far”.
Underwood is a retired football player who is known for being The Bachelor in 2019, and his gameplay has gone viral on The Traitors. Underwood came out as gay in 2021 and has since married and welcomed a son with political strategist Jordan C. Brown in September 2024. Here’s what the reality star said about his experience with online backlash:
I focus on the positive, but you know me well, and I’m gonna shoot you very straight: An example of a message that I had to send to Peacock is after the Michael Rapaport comment, somebody told me to stick a gun up my ass and pull the trigger and called me the F word in it. That’s crossing the line. If you don’t respect my gameplay, if you don’t like the character that I showed up as on Traitors, that is one thing, but to receive a message like that — to receive emails of my home address and referencing my child and my husband in it — that’s not OK.
In a new interview with Variety, Underwood detailed the violent threats he received online while on the social deception show. As he revealed, some comments went down a personal and dangerous road. As he continued:
That’s too far. Like I said, I focus on the positive, but I also see comments. I see people, like I said before, that are saying things that just are completely inaccurate. And I have no interest in going tit for tat. I have no interest in fighting with people in the comments. But I think just understanding that there’s a lot of context left out in that part of my life.
One reason Underwood has become a controversial figure in recent years has to do with a messy breakup following his run on The Bachelor. After his season, he rekindled things with one of the show’s contestants, Cassie Randolph, until they broke up in 2020. Details later came out about how Randolph got a restraining order and filed a police report against Underwood for stalking and harassment, which she later dropped.
Colton Underwood also told the outlet that he felt multiple messages sent to him lacked “accuracy” of his past, which he said he “will always and have taken accountability for.” The Bachelor star said that fans who watched his season don’t know about the “growth, a lot of self-work” and the “different place” in life he's in since the 2019 season.
Underwood played an aggressive game in The Traitors for seven episodes before getting “murdered” at the top of this week’s episode. The former NFL player said he feels “really proud” of how he played the game and is proud of Peacock for standing up for the cast. He also said he’s personally in “such a good place” in his life where he’s “happy and joyful.” Even though he ended up being a pawn in Rob Rausch’s plans as a traitor, he’s been vocal about how he’s rooting for the Love Island star to win the game.
As things stand before episode 9, there are 10 players left, with Rob Rausch as the only original traitor remaining. Episode 8 ended with Rob starting to recruit musician Eric Nam as a fellow traitor. You can see what happens next when it comes out this Thursday on Peacock.
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