Colton Underwood on Advice He'd Give Bachelor Clayton Echard: 'Make Sure You Have a Good Therapist'

Colton Underwood.Photo: JC Olivera/WireImage

Colton Underwoodis sharing his post-Bacheloradvice.

The dating reality show alum, 30, who held the titular role onThe Bachelorin 2019 exclusively shared with PEOPLE — while chatting about his experience onBeyond the Edge— the tips he would tellClayton Echardfollowing his run on season 26.

“My initial [piece of advice] would just be, make sure you have a good therapist and talk and vent to them because, unfortunately, in a position of being a lead of an ABC show, especially like the franchiseThe Bachelor, you can’t trust a whole lot of people,” Underwood tells PEOPLE.

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He adds, “If you say something, words can be twisted. It could be made a headline the very next day and taken out of context. It’s so hard to contain that.”

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Though admitting that he hasn’t watchedthis season ofThe Bachelor, he does see tracks of it on social media, mentioning, “no matter how hard you want to try to get away from it, you really can’t… especially when you were the lead at one point.”

While Underwood hasn’t kept up with the episodes weekly, he does hope the best for everyone on the show — not only Echard but the31 women who vied for his heart.

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Underwood first gained recognition as a contestant onBecca Kufrin’s season ofTheBachelorettein 2018. After appearing onBachelor in Paradise, he was named the season 23 lead ofThe Bachelor, dating 30 women at once while looking for love.

He ended hisBachelorseason in 2019 in a relationship withCassie Randolph, though theyannounced their splitin May 2020. Months later, Cassiefiled a restraining order against himthat September for allegedly harassing her, butdropped itnearly two months later.

The reality star publiclycame out as gayin April 2021 and later documented his experience for Netflix’sComing Out Colton. Since then, Underwood found love withJordan C. Brown, 39 — the twogot engagedin February 2022, and areready to marry.

While Underwood admitted to learning a lot during hisBachelorfranchise experiences, he shares that one of the biggest takeaways was “being able to have conversations pretty directly” and “asking hard questions and expecting hard answers” while doing so in “an intimate and personal way.”

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Underwood has vocalized numerous times that herecognizes the mistakeshe’s made in his past, but is continuing to learn and grow from them each day — and having been onThe Bachelorand CBS’sBeyond the Edge, he’s been pushed deeper into discovering his true self.

“I think uncovering me as a person is going to be an everyday thing and experience,” says Underwood. “I think that’s what’s beautiful about life is that not everything is set in stone.”

He adds, “[Both shows] were so different in many different ways. I really appreciated both shows for what they provided me at that time of my life and sort of what I needed, but didn’t know I needed in that time of my life.”

source: people.com