Everything Bachelor Colton Underwood Has Said About His Struggle With His Sexuality Over the Years

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Everything Bachelor Colton Underwood Has Said About His Struggle With His Sexuality Over the Years

In the words of Colton Underwood, he’s been on a “journey” when it comes to his sexuality. Fans met Underwood on season 14 of The Bachelorette when he competed for Becca Kufrin’s heart. While he made it to the final four, the former NFL player was sent packing after the hometown dates. Underwood subsequently appeared on Bachelor in Paradise during the summer of 2018, briefly rekindling his fling with Kufrin’s pal Tia Booth, whom he met before he appeared on the publicist’s season. During the fall of 2018, ABC named Underwood the season 23 Bachelor. His season debuted in January 2019 and had a rocky finish, with front-runner Cassie Randolph quitting the competition ahead of the finale. The athlete ultimately broke up with his other finalists and convinced Randolph to stay and give their romance a shot. After more than one year together, the twosome confirmed in May 2020 that they went their separate ways. After battling coronavirus and facing allegations of stalking and harassment from Randolph (which he denied), Underwood came out as gay in April 2021. [jwplayer Oc7jJGGS-l3ahXupL] “I’ve ran from myself for a long time. I’ve hated myself for a long time. … I’m gay,” he told Robin Roberts on Good Morning America. “And I came to terms with that earlier this year and have been processing it. And the next step in all of this was sort of letting people know.” Following the interview, the 30 women who appeared on Underwood’s season began to speak out. “Do I regret being the Bachelor? Do I regret handling it the way that I did? I do think I could have handled it better, I’ll say that,” he told Roberts at the time. “I just wish I wouldn’t have dragged people into my own mess of figuring out who I was. I genuinely mean that, but I also, at the same time, I can sit here and say I’m sorry to all of those women, I can also say thank you. Without them and without the Bachelor franchise, I don’t know if this would have ever came out.” When it came to Randolph, specifically, Underwood offered an apology. (Us Weekly confirmed in September 2020 that the Huntington Beach native was granted a restraining order against her ex, which was dropped that November.) “I loved everything about her and it's hard for me to articulate exactly what my emotions were in going through that relationship with her was because I obviously had an internal fight going on,” he said. “I would just say that I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart. I'm sorry for any pain and emotional stress I caused. I wish that it wouldn't have happened the way that it did. I wish that I had been courageous enough to fix myself before I broke anybody else.” Scroll through for Underwood’s candid quotes about his sexuality over the years: [podcast_block]

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An Identity Struggle

Underwood revealed in his 2020 memoir, The First Time: Finding Myself and Looking for Love on Reality TV, that he wondered about his sexuality after his second high school relationship ended.

"I didn't know who I was," he wrote. "And I come from an athletic family, so it was always, ‘Move on, you're good.' So that threw me off. In high school, when I was struggling with my sexuality, I'm not going to talk to my parents about it. So I internalized it."

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Rumors Spreading About His Sexuality

Underwood took to the internet after rumors spread around school that he was gay.

“[My dad] pulled up the history of recent Google searches, which included gay porn sites and a variety of questions: Am I gay? How do you know if you’re gay? Why don’t I like having sex with my girlfriend?” Underwood wrote in his book. “At first, I denied responsibility. Then I owned up to having been curious. He asked if I wanted to talk about it. I said no, explaining that I’d figured things out on my own. I begged him not to tell Mom. I’m sure he did. But neither of them ever spoke about it with me.”

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Waiting to Have Sex

“Sometimes I wonder if my life would have been much easier if I had been gay,” Underwood, who was a virgin during his stint in Bachelor Nation, wrote in the book. “Maybe it would’ve helped me to know myself better and sooner. Maybe I wouldn’t have stayed a virgin. Maybe I wouldn’t have asked 'Who am I?' as often as I did and suffered as much angst because I didn’t have an answer. Identity was such a big question mark with me. Yes, I was a football player. But what else was I? Was there anything more?”

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Writing About His Struggles

“The hardest part was definitely opening up and sort of talking about early on in grade school and even in high school, getting called gay,” he said exclusively on Us’ “Here For the Right Reasons” podcast in March 2020. “The reason I say that is because it came back up when I was the Bachelor. I think it was very easy for fans and very easy for people to just — [when] they don’t understand something or if they don’t agree with somebody, they have to, in their mind, get from point A to point B. So point B is, ‘Oh, he’s gay. That’s why he’s a virgin. He’s just hiding it from us.'”

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That ‘Virgin Bachelor’ Label

Even before he came out, Underwood was candid about how much he struggled with the label of the “virgin Bachelor.” During his chat with Roberts, he reflected on being asked about his sex life during his time on the show.

“I could never give anybody a good enough answer about why I was a virgin. The truth is I was ‘the virgin Bachelor’ because I was gay, and I didn’t know how to handle that,” he said. “I put myself in really bad situations on purpose. I put myself in these situations so I could try to force myself to be straight.”

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When He Knew

Underwood told Roberts in April 2021 that he knew he was “different” when he was six years old.

“I couldn’t process it and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was until high school, my freshman year when I knew I was gay,” he continued. “By that time, I had already grown up in the Catholic Church, I had gone to Catholic grade school. I had learned in the Bible that [being] gay is a sin.”

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Wanting to ‘Pray the Gay Away’

“I used to wake up in the morning and pray for Him to take the gay away. I used to pray for Him to change me and I can now wake up and pray to God,” Underwood told Roberts in April 2021. “I can actually have faith and I can go into church and be present; not have it be conditional on this topic of, ‘Take this off my plate and I’ll still worship you and I’ll still be there.’ It’s more, I’m closer to him. And that’s helped.”

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Mental Health Struggles

“Overall, the reason why [I came out] now is because I got to a place where … I would’ve rather died than say I’m gay,” Underwood said on GMA. “There was a moment in L.A. that I woke up, and I didn’t think I was going to wake up. I didn’t have the intentions of waking up. I think that for me was my wakeup call.”

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Finding That Connection

"I still have a lot to work through. I'll go on the record and say I still haven't had an emotional connection with a man,” the reality TV personality said in April 2021. "I've never allowed myself to. And it's never been sort of in my cards to let myself get there. I want to more than anything. … I'm looking for someone who can push me and challenge me in all the great ways."

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The Restraining Order

Underwood admitted he may not have come out had Randolph not filed a restraining order against him. "I think that was sort of a huge wake-up call. I’m sad that it even got to that point to where that had to be my wake-up call and me affecting other people in my life was sort of the moment that I realized I had to come out,” he told Us ahead of his Netflix series, Coming Out Colton. “Obviously, I wish I would have had the courage to come out without having to be pushed."

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Thinking Cassie Could Change Him

During Coming Out Colton, the reality star said that his connection with Cassie was so strong that "I felt like I found somebody who could change me." When she left, he thought, "If I can’t get there with you then I definitely can’t with any other woman."

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Mortified

"The reason I’m coming out is because I’m ashamed and I’m sort of mortified of what got me to this position in the first place. I knew that I couldn’t hide it anymore because I didn’t want to affect or harm anybody else in my life," he added about Randolph during the Netflix show. "I knew that if I let her go, I would have to deal with me and I didn’t want to and I wasn’t ready for it."

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Finally Letting in the World

Ahead of Coming Out Colton, the athlete told Us that he was hesitant to do another reality show. "There was a lot of thought that went into it, but I really realized my story and who I was. I was always told who I was my entire life — whether it was [during] football or in the church, then obviously on The Bachelor," he explained to Us. "I felt like it was important for me to come to terms. ... and really own who I am and say, 'Hey, this is actually who I am.' And for the first time, I'm going to let people truly see that."

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Reality TV Fears

During a December 2021 appearance on the "Call Me Daddy" podcast, the reality star said that he spent his time on The Bachelorette and The Bachelor worrying that someone might out him. "I was very, very concerned and very worried," he recalled. "I did hear a rumor that one of the producers ended up finding out that I did hook up with a man, but kept it secret or took care of it, I don't know. I can't verify that. Obviously, that was terrifying too."

Looking back at that time now, Underwood is shocked at how well he hid parts of himself from the cameras. "I cringe now even looking back at some of how good I was at manipulating situations and compartmentalizing, but I've been doing it since I was 6," he explained. "Did I find some of the producers attractive? Yes. Never acted on any of that ... I was so good at compartmentalizing my life."