Colton Underwood and Cassie Randolph have called it quits.
The pair took to Instagram on Friday to announce that they have broken up after a year and a half of dating. The former Bachelor -- who tested positive for COVID-19 and has since fully recovered -- began by saying that it's been a crazy few months.
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"Cass and I have been doing a lot of self-reflecting. Sometimes people are just meant to be friends - and that’s okay," he wrote. "We both have grown immensely and been through so much together - so this isn’t the end of our story, it’s the start of a whole new chapter for us."
Randolph also shared a slideshow filled with pics of the two, adding that sharing their breakup news is "one of the hardest things I have had to share as neither one of us is quite ready to talk about it yet."
"However, because our relationship is such a public one, our silence on the matter has been speaking for us. Colton and I have broken up, but have decided to remain a part of each others lives," she continued. "With all that we have gone through, we have a special bond that will always be there."
She added that she loves Underwood "very much" and has an "enormous amount of respect for him." "We have both learned and grown so much these past couple years, and will always have each others back. Always," she concluded.
While recovering from his COVID-19 diagnosis, Underwood had been staying at Randolph's family's home in Huntington Beach, California. On multiple occasions, he praised her for taking care of him.
In Underwood's book, The First Time: Finding Myself and Looking for Love on Reality TV, he revealed that he and Randolph briefly broke up after his Bachelor season. Their split in August of last year only lasted a couple of days, but as Underwood told ET, it was enough to teach him that there was "no certainty" in their relationship.
"There is no certainty right now. I mean, we're not engaged, we're not married. I love her to bits and pieces and I think that for us, we just need to keep communicating and having those open conversations with one another," he said. "I mean, we're just taking it day by day right now."
"It's still a day-by-day thing at this point," he repeated of his relationship with Randolph. "There is not certainty right now in this world."
Underwood's lax attitude was seemingly a direct response to the issues that caused his breakup with Randolph last year.
"I put a lot of pressure on our relationship when I was always defending it or I was overcompensating and trying too hard. I was almost pushing her away by trying to bring her closer," he explained. "I was saying, 'No, we'll be fine. We'll be engaged by this date. We'll do this, we'll do this, we'll do this.' And it was sort of overwhelming her all over again. "
"[I said things] like, 'We need to talk about this. You can't just, like, go out in the media and say this,' or 'You can't just tweet about this or Instagram like this without communicating and talking with me,'" Underwood recalled. "We both just let a lot of things -- little things -- build up, because we got busy."
See more in the video below.
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