Jason Tartick is speaking out about his strong opinions of Colton Underwood. The Bachelorette star, 33, called the fellow reality hunk “very calculated” and made some allegations of what it was like with him when they both interviewed to be The Bachelor lead, during the most recent episode of his podcast, Trading Secrets. Jason claimed Colton told the producers of the show that they should pick him if they wanted “good TV ratings.”
Jason went on to explain that although he knows he wouldn’t have gotten better ratings than Colton, 30, who ended up being picked as the season 23 “Bachelor,” he didn’t get picked because he “wouldn’t have been manipulated” during his time on the series.
“I’m just not in the business of getting manipulated to create drama … one of the big reasons is because I’m boring. I’m vanilla,” Jason said during his podcast episode. “They know I wouldn’t have been manipulated, I wouldn’t have done crazy s*it. He was exactly right. He nailed it.”
Before they tried out for The Bachelor, Jason and Colton both competed for Becca Kufrin‘s love during the 14th season of The Bachelorette in 2018. Although the former friends used to be somewhat close, Jason said that over time, he noticed Colton unfollowed him and his fiancee Kaitlyn Bristowe on social media. Since then, he hasn’t talked to him.
“No, I don’t talk to him,” Jason said. “Ironically enough, just found out he recently unfollowed Kaitlyn and I. Not sure why. We returned the favor.”
Jason further explained the unfollow could have been because Colton’s ex Cassie Randolph made an appearance on Kaitlyn’s podcast in March. During the episode, Kaitlyn talked about how “horrible” and “shocking” it was to know Colton didn’t tell her he was gay before he came out to the world in April 2021. Jason also claimed that Colton was initially working on getting a Netflix show about his relationship with Cassie and it wasn’t Coming Out Colton, which is the show that ended up getting filmed for the network.
“He was gonna have a show with Cassie, then he was gonna have a show by himself with his friends,” Jason alleged. “He was working every angle to get a Netflix show, and I commend him, you know? He knows what he wants and he goes for it.”
In the midst of their current falling out, Jason insists everything between him, Colton, and Kaitlyn were fine until Colton and Cassie split in May 2020. The former couple then made headlines when Cassie took out a restraining order on Colton for allegedly stalking her in Sept. 2020.
“I do remember him making a comment about if him and Cassie didn’t work out,” Jason explained. “They needed him and Cassie; it couldn’t just be his show. And I think he put a lot of equity in that.”
The podcast host concluded by admitting that despite some of his knowledge, he doesn’t “know the whole story” about Cassie and Colton and he hasn’t seen Coming Out Colton.