The Zach Nichols Podcast - The Colton Underwood Interview! | ZNP EP. 167

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

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Hey, what's up? It's Colton Underwood and I'm on the Zach Nichols podcast talking about my new book, Dear Bishop, All Things Traders, a little bit of The Bachelor, and of course, the challenge. Are you guys ready? I'm ready. All right. Welcome back to the Zach Nichols podcast. Probably our most famous guest here. I would agree. I would agree. The most followers on Instagram for sure. No doubt about that. You want to give the, I saw you have a, you have a rap sheet. So go for it. I do have acclades. But before we get into that, Mr. Colton Underwood and the building. I'm going to go all through them.

Oh, I'm going to. We always start with accolades when somebody comes through. It was funny because I was like, okay, former NFL football player, I'm like, I can't wait to hit him with the line that I always get. People are always like, you look bigger on TV. So I was going to hit you with that when you walked in. I never get that. I always get you're so much bigger than what I. That's exactly.

I was so ready to hit you with like, oh, you look a lot bigger on TV. No. Nope. It's real. Definitely six every inch of six three. So we're going to go through some. We always used to talk about some of the accomplishments and the accolades of anyone that makes the trip out here.

First of all, thank you for coming to Detroit. Midwest in the building. Round of applause for the Midwest in the building. Yeah, but fuck the calves. Yeah, big time. You guys, he's a former collegiate and NFL football player. One of the most iconic bachelor nation people on the planet. One of the only few to do the big three,

which is the bachelor, Bachelor in Paradise. And the Bachelorette. All in the same year. All in the same year, which is no one's done that, right? Back to back to back. Nobody's done that. Poor guy. Just the three flagships.

And just so you guys know, that one is on ABC. Then you had your own reality show named after you coming out, Colton, that correct. And that was on Netflix. So we're doing more business with another network. And then you competed and won a reality TV show, Beyond the Edge, beating the likes of NFL Hall of Famers, Mike Singletary, and Ray Lewis on CBS. Am I missing something here? Like we're beating Hall of Famers here.

Ray Lewis, dude. I don't even want to be in the same room as Ray Lewis. I was scared. The intensity there. Scared, yeah. Competed in, oh, and that was on CBS. And then we have you as a contestant on the mass singer, singing multiple songs on Fox.

We're not done yet. You also host a show. Are you my first on Hulu? This is a dating show. This is what I want to pitch for myself. And then obviously, Traders on P. He's a New York Times bestselling author for his first book the first time. And we have a brand new audio book, Dear Bishop, it's out.

It's out now. Out now. We're out now, which is a letter to your son. And then none of that being more important that being a son, brother, husband, and father, one more time. Give it up for Colton Underwood. I didn't realize you did all three of those in one calendar year. I didn't get to watch them. So I was.

It was better. I yeah I think I watched the premiere of Bachelorette and then two days later had to fly down to Mexico for Paradise and I just remember asking the producers like how's it going like just trying to get anything from them because they like me you know they sort of like were I was new to obviously TV at that time but they were basically like after I got broken up with on Bachelorette they're like congrats you're going to probably be our bachelor at they're like great and they're like but you have to go to Paradise first and I was like why and I Obviously, they knew, like, story arc of what I was going to play out. And so I get there and I'm, like, midway through taping. And I was like, can I go home yet? Like, is this like, did you guys get your story here? Because I don't want to be here. It was brutal, brutal.

Well, actually, the other thing, too, is when you don't get to watch it, you don't get to, like, see things about yourself that you don't like and then change them. And what actually happens is if you're not watching you're just going back to back filming, sometimes the negative things about yourself that you would have seen and changed. Yeah. They get bigger and bigger. you don't know like that when you're filming they can't put 24-7-7 like all the benefits so like they'll pinpoint one thing and you'll see that and if you don't get to see it you don't even realize

you're doing it so that's actually right I just thought about what I said that it's probably better it's better because you didn't have to watch it and deal with the backlash yeah but you didn't even get a chance to be like I didn't like that I can change that and I can be better next time it just probably just snowballed I wasn't in my head I was just like doing it which was which is great but yeah there's better for the fans the funny thing is like when i got out of that when i got out of my bachelor season i went to Vegas with some of my friends and we went to a cane brown concert and he invited us um backstage and i was just so naive at that point because i had i haven't it's been like a year of filming television and i stepped in front of the curtain just to see how

many people were there and the audience went crazy and it was like my first moment where i was like oh fuck life changed and cane i remember king's manager came running out like what the fuck was that I was like, sorry. I was like, I didn't know like what's going on here. And it was like, in my head, I was like, oh, my life is about to change. Yeah. This is crazy. Yeah. You were just the biggest star on the time, at the time, the biggest dating show, probably in my opinion, the biggest dating show in the history of reality television. And you were just the star. Yeah. So I think so. I definitely know so. Um, so a lot of things. They asked me to be on Bachelorette one season. Oh, yeah? I was like, no shot. No, you would have been good on it. Yeah, no. I

in my 20s. It would have been a, it would have been a very time to do it. Yes. I know, but I'm just saying I was not, I'm still not mentally capable or mature enough to handle that. I don't know, but yeah, somehow I ended up there. We definitely have so much to talk about. I do want to start talking about this audio book. So, tell us about it. And yeah, just, just give us the rundown where we can get it. And then I have some questions about fatherhood and parenthood. Yeah, I think a lot of people asked, I did my first memoir when I was still in the closet and I had like, you know, direct lies in there and also just, you know, protecting myself at the time. So people always sort of asked if I was going to do a second one. And I might, I never like

to speak in definitive in our line of work because fun opportunities come up all the time and you sort of go against what you were like, I'll never do another reality show again. And it's like, this dude ends up on. Everyone that says that ends up on a show. I hate what like, do you know how many of challenges have retired and showed up two seasons later. Exactly. Yeah, you know. So like talking to you, Leroy. it's like I just don't like to like speak in definitive. So I was like, I just has to be the right thing. And I started thinking,

you know, I want my son to be able to hear from me who his father was, what I went through and the internet's forever. So he's going to be able to Google me when he wants. But I just wanted to give him something like that. And I just thought this could be a fun opportunity to sort of let people back in in a way that isn't like a big glossy memoir,

but it's like an audio book direct, you know, I also like that I directed it. to him because it let me have like a singular person that I was focusing on telling the story to instead of trying to appeal to the masses. Right. Um, which is naturally when you're writing a book, things change, you leave some things out. And it's like this one was just sort of like direct to my son. This is the facts. Like this is what happened. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It's never written a book. Never will. Never say never. Maybe a picture book. Take it like a picture book.

Hey, I have a Tori can. So can you. Um, so. Um, so. Um, Here's my first question, because this is, you know, this audio book is a letter to Bishop, your beautiful boy. Is being a father something you always wanted? And then you talked about how your first memoir you were closeted at the time, did coming out change what you thought fatherhood would be for you? Yeah. I mean, I never thought I could come out and be a father.

Like, you know, I just, I had a very, like, naive way of approaching just my sexuality. I'm like, okay, if I'm gay, like, I have to be this one singular thing. I don't see the representation of where I fit into this community. So that was one of the main reasons I stayed in the closet outside of my faith and sports culture, but it was because I wanted to be a dad. So, yeah, when I was in the second grade, our teacher asked us what we want to be when we grow up. I put this in the book and I wrote down NFL player. And I went up and gave it to her and she's like, you have to go back to your desk and choose a more realistic, like, path, like profession.

Yeah, you showed that bitch. So I went and I wrote stay at home dad. And then I was like, now I got the opportunity to go do two things. Absolutely. Absolutely. Jokes on her. Yeah, fuck her. My fifth grade teacher told me I'd never graduate from high school.

Fuck you. The way that we always, I always got to describe it is like we have two, you know, family people, which, you know, I think Midwestern people were this way, is we have two dreams. We have a family dream and a professional dream. And to be able to accomplish both is. Pretty, pretty special. So, um, congrats to you for finding your way. Um, we recently had Zach's mother on the podcast last week. And, um, as a parent, um, you're going to take things from your mom. You're going to take things from your dad. And then there's some things that you're going to do completely different. So, um, what are some things you were going to take from your mom, some things you're going to take from

your dad and some things that you're going to do completely different. Oh, gosh. My relationship with my parents are, are so different in their own cool way. Like my mom and I are more friends now. Like, there was some, you know, when my parents split, it obviously like shifted my relationship with them a little bit, made them more human, brought them off their pedestal. Um, my mom's an overshare, like, TMI all the time with their dating life and, but like what I love about her is how just, like, how genuine and authentic she is. Um, so I think like that is what I take from her. She also hates television. So she's the only one on the Netflix show. Um, they hated that I did this. and I don't even think, I think they just recently found out.

But, you know, my Netflix bought this off of the premise of I'm coming out to everybody on camera. And my mom had such a rough time with Bachelor. Like, the producers made her cry and confessional. And she was like, I never want to do television again. So I was like, I can't do this to you. Yeah. So I took her out to dinner the night before we were set to film the Netflix show. And I said, hey, I just want to let you know.

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