Colton Underwood Reveals ‘Suicidal Thoughts’ Before Coming Out as Gay, Details Telling His Family: Everything We Learned in New Interview

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Colton Underwood Reveals 'Suicidal Thoughts' Before Coming Out as Gay, Details Telling His Family: Everything We Learned in New Interview

Sharing his truth. Colton Underwood came out as gay in a Wednesday, April 14, interview, opening up to Robin Roberts about his journey to acceptance, his mental health battle and more. The former Bachelor, 29, said that he was motivated to come out after getting “into a place with [his] personal life that was dark and bad.” The Bachelorette alum explained, “I think overall the reason why now is because I got to a place where I didn’t think I was ever going to share this. I would have rather died than say, 'I’m gay.'" The former professional football player first joined the Bachelor franchise when he competed for Becca Kufrin’s heart on season 14 of The Bachelorette. After having a fling with Tia Booth on Bachelor in Paradise, the athlete went on to star as the Bachelor for the show's 23rd season. The First Time: Finding Myself and Looking for Love on Reality TV author gave his final rose to Cassie Randolph, but the Bachelor Nation members called it quits in May 2020. “It’s been a crazy few months to say the least, Cass and I have been doing a lot of self-reflecting,” Underwood wrote via Instagram following their split. “Sometimes people are just meant to be friends – and that’s OK. 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.” In September 2020, Randolph, 25, filed a restraining order against the Indiana native, which was granted that same month. She dropped the restraining order two months later. [jwplayer h0CDRtky] Underwood apologized to the California native in his Good Morning America interview, saying, "I'd like to say sorry for how things ended. I messed up. I made a lot of bad choices." The former tight end revealed last year that he had previously faced rumors about his sexuality. He wrote in his March 2020 book that when the speculation went back to his parents in high school, his dad, Scott Underwood, didn’t let it go right away. “He’d 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?” the Illinois State grad explained in his memoir. “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. All that research, though, led me to understand that I was definitely attracted to girls.” Keep scrolling to see how Scott reacted to his son’s news and more revelations from Colton's tell-all below. [podcast_block]

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How His Mental Health Suffered

"There was a moment in L.A. that I woke up, and I didn’t think I was gonna wake up. I didn’t have the intentions of waking up, and I did. I think for me that was, like, my, my wake-up call. Like, this is your life, take back control. Beyond that, [I had] even just suicidal thoughts. I’m driving my car close to a cliff, like, ‘Oh if this goes off the cliff, it’s not that big of a deal.’ I don’t feel that anymore."

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Why He’s Coming Out

"Obviously this year’s been a lot for a lot of people, and it’s probably when a lot of people look at themselves in the mirror and figure out what they’ve been running from and what they’ve been putting off in their lives. I ran from myself for a long time. I hated myself for a long time. I’m gay, and I came to terms with that earlier this year and have been processing it. The next step in all of this was sort of letting people know."

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Whether He Loved Cassie

"Yes, and that only made it harder and more confusing for me. 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 because I obviously had an internal fight going on. 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."

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When He Knew His Sexuality

"I've known that I've been different since age 6, and 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. 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. I had made mistakes in my sports and in my athletic career and when you make mistakes, that play was 'gay.' .... Gay was always affiliated with a connotation of negativity and I think there's a lot of things when I look back, I'm like, no wonder I held it in."

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Why He Did ‘The Bachelor’

"I literally remember praying, praying to God the morning I found out that I was on Bachelor and thanking him for making me straight. I remember that vividly and saying like, 'Finally, you're letting me be straight. Finally, you're giving me a wife, a fiancée and then I'm gonna have the kids and then I'm gonna have the house and then I'm gonna have all this."

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Who He’s Told

"I wish I could have had faith in my friends and my family a little bit more. My dad, I told him, and his reaction was sort of ... 'I wish you would have trusted me sooner.' He followed it up with, 'How can I help you? How can I take this off of your plate? Who can I tell?' To me, that was more meaningful than 'I love you.' The only reason I’m here today is because I have the love and support of my family."

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On His Relationship With God

"I used to pray for him to change me and I can now wake up and pray to God and 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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Whether He's Dated

"I'll just go on record saying like I still haven't had an emotional connection with a man. I've never allowed myself to."

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How He's Doing Now

"I’m emotional, but I’m emotional in such a positive way. I’m the happiest and healthiest I’ve ever been in my life and that means the world to me."