‘The Bachelor’ Colton Underwood Prompted Search Party When He Fled the Show During Filming

The Bachelor was Bachelor-less at some point in the middle of production, according to Colton Underwood.

The 26-year-old former football player told Entertainment Tonight that in the highly-teased moment when he jumped a fence, he was literally and figuratively walking away from the series.

“I was gone for a while. In that moment, and the feelings I was feeling, I left the show,” he said on Tuesday, adding that the fence jump kicked off his exit. “I needed time to myself.”

“In the moment I was gone, there was no Bachelor,” he said.

Although he did not reveal how long he was gone, Monday’s sneak peek into the rest of the season revealed that it was long enough for host Chris Harrison and the rest of the production team to search for him in the night.

“I’m a resourceful guy! I’m in Colorado, right? I know how to make a little bonfire, fight off some coyotes or whatever we got to do,” he laughed, adding that his temporary desertion was the result of things getting “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 said.

Underwood added that Harrison ended up finding him and talking some sense into him, revealing that “you’ll see how that convo went” later on in the season. “There’s just a lot of emotions that go into finding love, obviously. But there’s a lot of emotions that went into filming the show, too.”

“It was a conversation, not only with Chris but, you know, with myself, just really coming to terms with, ‘Hey, this is happening right now. This is how I have to deal with it, and this is how we’re going to get through,’” he added, confessing that “of course” he cried.

“As much as it looks like a breakdown, you’re having these internal breakthroughs. This is what’s going on right now, and this is how we’re going to have to get through it, and this is how I’m going to have to process it, and like I said, in that moment, I just needed to be by myself,” he continued. “There was nobody on the other side of that fence, so I needed to get out and just get gone.”

He has remained mum on the result of the season and whether or not he ended up engaged or even in love. “I have a lot of love for a lot of things in my life,” he teased.

All in all, however, he’s happy he hopped back to the other side of that fence.

“Even heading into this new year, I’m still continuing to grow. I’m not perfect, I know that, [but] I want to really enjoy this… this experience, this opportunity, and really just go on this roller coaster with everybody. But I do think I still have a lot of room to grow,” he said.

“I’m excited. 2019’s going to be a great year.”

The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.