SECRET LIFE

‘Bachelor’ Star Reveals Having Affairs With Married Men Before Fame

The reality TV star says his fear of being exposed led him to seek out married men while hiding his sexuality.

Colton Underwood, 34, is opening up about the lengths he went to conceal his sexuality before publicly coming out as gay in 2021. Speaking on the We Need to Talk podcast, the former football player and reality television star revealed that he limited his encounters with men who were married in an effort to protect himself from being outed. “They had more to lose than I did,” Underwood said. He feared that public revelation about his sexuality could damage both his football aspirations and later his television career. Underwood first entered the reality television world on Becca Kufrin’s season of The Bachelorette before becoming the lead of The Bachelor in 2019. The long-running dating series follows a single man as he dates multiple women over several weeks before choosing a potential fiancée in the finale. During his season, Underwood became known as the “Virgin Bachelor” after producers highlighted the fact that he had never had sex. Underwood said that the storyline overshadowed the deeper reason behind his decision to remain a virgin. “There were so many reasons why I was a virgin… obviously, the one that I didn’t tell publicly was my struggle with my sexuality.” He also admitted that becoming The Bachelor was, in part, an attempt to convince himself he was straight. “I’m going to be so publicly straight that I will never be able to be gay again,” he recalled thinking. Underwood publicly came out as gay in 2021 and is now married to political strategist Jordan C. Brown-Underwood. The couple welcomed their son, Bishop Colton Brown-Underwood, via surrogacy on Sept. 26, 2024.