Colton Underwood is living his truth.
The Bachelor star made a big announcement on Good Morning America on Wednesday (April 14).
“For me, I’ve ran from myself for a long time. I’ve hated myself for a long time, and I’m gay,” Colton said in a pre-taped interview with Robin Roberts. “And I came to terms with that earlier this year and I’ve been processing it. I think the next step in all of this is letting people know. I’m still nervous but, yeah, it’s been a journey for sure.”
“For me, I’ve run from myself for a long time. I’ve 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. It’s been a journey for sure,” he continued. “I’m emotional, but I’m emotional in such a happy and positive way. I’m like the happiest and healthiest I’ve ever been in my life and that means the world to me.”
Audiences first met Colton as a contestant on Becca Kufrin‘s season of The Bachelorette – where the former football player revealed he was a virgin. He also became part of Bachelor in Paradise and later starred in the 2019 season of The Bachelor – where he ended up with Cassie Randolph.
They dated for less than two years, and went through a very public breakup in the summer of 2020 – she even filed a restraining order and accused him of stalking and harassment! She later dropped the investigation and the order though.
Why come out now? Colton shared that “I got into a place for me in my personal life that was dark and bad. I can list a bunch of different things, but they’d all be excuses. But I think overall, the reason why now is because I got a place where I didn’t think I was ever going to share this. I would’ve rather died than say ‘I’m gay.’ And I think that was sort of my wakeup call.”
He also revealed that he’d thought about harming himself, opening up that, “Yeah. 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, and I did. And I think for me, that was my wake-up call of like, ‘This is your life. Take back control.’”
“I think looking back even beyond that is like, even just suicidal thoughts… when driving my car close to a cliff and [thinking], ‘Oh, if this goes too close to the cliff, it’s not that big of a deal.’ I don’t feel that anymore,” he added.
As for going on The Bachelor and courting women on national television, he opened up about having mixed feelings about it.
“I thought a lot about this. Do I regret being The Bachelor and do I regret handling it the way that I did? I do. I do think I could’ve handled it better. 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 could sit here and say ‘I’m sorry’ to all of those women, but I can also say ‘thank you,’ because without them, and without The Bachelor franchise, I don’t know if this would have ever came out,” he said.
He also has a message for Cassie.
“I’d like to say sorry for how things ended. I messed up. I made a lot of bad choices,” he said.
He maintains that he was in love with her, and “that made it harder and more confusing for me.”
“If I’m being honest, 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 continued. “I would just say that I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart. I’m sorry for the pain and emotional stress I caused. I wish it wouldn’t have happened the way it did.”
