Former professional football player and leading man on season 23 of The Bachelor, Colton Underwood sat down with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America early Wednesday morning (April 14) to share that he is gay.
During the personal interview, titled “Colton Underwood: In His Own Words,” the Bachelor star confessed that he has used this challenging year to reflect on himself and come to terms with his sexuality.
“I’ve ran from myself for a long time,” the 29-year-old said in the pre-taped interview. “I’ve hated myself for a long time. I came to terms with that earlier this year and have been processing it.”
I sat down with former #Bachelor star @colton for a deeply personal conversation. Like for so many…this past year was a time of deep reflection. You'll hear from #ColtonUnderwood in his own words exclusively coming up @GMA pic.twitter.com/KLh6OD58ww
— Robin Roberts (@RobinRoberts) April 14, 2021
When Roberts asked the former NFL player “why now,” he revealed that the next step in his journey to find happiness, was to let the world know his true authentic self. “The next step in all of this was sort of letting people know,” said Underwood. “I think overall the reason why now, is because I got to a place that I don’t think I was ever going to share this. I think I would rather die than say I’m gay,” he admitted.
According to the heavy exclusive, Underwood realized he was “different” at age 6, but struggled to accept himself. In fact, he shared that he’s now “the happiest and healthiest” he has ever been. However, to find the joy in his life, the Bachelor star stated that he previously been in a “dark and bad” place before his truth.
When Roberts questioned if he has ever hurt himself or contemplated suicide – the answer was yes. “There was a moment in LA that I woke up, and I didn’t think I was going to wake up,” he shared. “I didn’t have the intentions of waking up. I think that for me was my wake-up call.”
The GMA interview took a sudden turn when he directly apologized to his ex-girlfriend Cassie Randolph. Underwood and Randolph met on Season 23 of The Bachelor and recently broke up in May of 2020.
The pair had a messy split, as Randolph filed a restraining order against Colton for allegedly placing a tracking device on her vehicle and for stalking. During this time, Randolph claimed that Underwood would send her alarming text messages and once loitered an alleyway outside her bedroom window at her parents’ home at 2AM in Huntington Beach, California.
“I would like to say sorry for how things ended,” he said on national TV. “I messed up. I made a lot of bad choices.” Following his heartfelt confession, he admitted that he never doubted his love for Cassie. However, the relationship between the two made figuring out his sexuality more difficult.
“It made it more confusing for me,” says Colton. “I loved everything about her…I wish that I would’ve been courageous enough to fix myself before breaking anyone else.” To go along with the long list of apologizes, Underwood said sorry to the women he had hurt on season 23 of The Bachelor.
“Do I regret being ‘The Bachelor?’ Do I regret handling it the way that I did? I do. I do think I could’ve handled it better,” he shared. “I just wish I wouldn’t have dragged people into the mess of figuring out who I was.”
“…But I can sit here and say I’m sorry to all of those women, and I can also say thank you because without them and without The Bachelor franchise, I don’t know if this would’ve come out.”
You can check out Colton’s full interview with Robin Roberts below and don’t forget to let us know what you think of this news by either leaving a reaction at the bottom of the post or by sending us a tweet at @celebsecrets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43xJkU8ZPbk
