Blocking out the haters! Demi Burnett, who competed for Colton Underwood’s heart on The Bachelor season 23, has received both kind words and criticism after revealing her mother Tina Jean Jordan’s sentence in federal prison.
Demi, 24, opened up to Underwood, 27, about Tina’s situation during the January 7 episode. “My mom might be really messed up, but that woman loves me so much and no mater what she does, I love her unconditionally,” she told him. The pair later called Tina together and wished her well.
“There’s a lot of support. There’s some people who tell me that I’m going to end up in prison like my mom but, you know, they don’t faze me,” the Dallas native exclusively told Us Weekly at the Bachelor: Women Tell All taping in Los Angeles on Friday, February 22. “[Haters say that] just because I’m scandalous. But I have gotten a lot of people who’ve come out and they’re like, ‘Thank you for speaking about this. I have a parent in prison too and nobody ever talks about it or understands it’ and I like that a lot. That makes me feel good.”
Although the interior designer faced backlash during her time on the show for embracing her sexuality, she’s more confident than ever. “Whenever I was growing up, I felt that I needed to not be sexual, I needed to be perfect and couldn’t say things people didn’t want me to hear and I put myself in a box for a long time,” she told Us. “And then once I went to college and suddenly started reaching out of that box, I was like, ‘This feels better. This feels better.’ So I just want to encourage everybody to be whoever you want to be.”
Demi, who was eliminated during the February 11 episode after telling Underwood she has serious feelings for him, added: “You can be that person who isn’t sexual and that’s fine. Or you can be more sexual than me. You can be crazy, you can do whatever you want to do. Just accept people and accept yourself and own it. Bottom line, own who you are.”
The Bachelor airs on ABC Mondays at 8 p.m. ET and the Women Tell All special airs on Tuesday, March 5.
