Colton Underwood shocked Bachelor Nation when he became known as the virgin Bachelor. However, as it turns out, he wasn’t entirely honest about his past before going on TV. Keep reading to learn more about all that Colton was hiding.
Colton Underwood Wasn’t A Virgin
Colton Underwood has been in the headlines several times since his time on The Bachelor. From stalking allegations to coming out as gay and even being a star on The Traitors, everyone has something to say about Colton and the decisions he has made in his life. Now, he’s shocking fans once again. Despite being known as the virgin Bachelor, he revealed on a podcast that wasn’t entirely true. He was actually sleeping with married men before he went to Bachelor Nation.
Protecting Himself
Before Colton was a reality TV star, he was an NFL player. So, he felt forced to protect himself while he figured out his sexuality.
“To protect myself, I would only hook up with married men. [Married] ‘straight’ men,” he says according to Page Six.
Why married men? Because they had more to lose than Colton did. While he risked his football career by exploring, they would risk their families by outing him. According to Colton, he thought they had more to lose than he did.
“So that was sort of my rule that I would never break,” he continues. “When I was in the closet, that would be the only time I would ever hook up with men was if they were married … because they had more to lose than I did.”
However, Colton insists he did this all to protect himself.
“I was very careful, even when I was physically experimenting with guys and trying to, like, figure myself out,” he says. “So if they tried to, you know, ruin my career and my life for football, they had a whole family that they’d be risking as well. So it’s a messed-up thing to think through, but like it was a form of self-preservation… it was just like a way to protect myself.”
The Virgin Bachelor
Of course, this leads to a lot of questions, as Colton was heavily marketed as a virgin when he was on The Bachelorette and The Bachelor. Colton admits that’s something that he didn’t want to be known as. Not because he felt guilty, but because he had, in fact, hooked up with people before. They were just men. Needless to say, he wasn’t in a spot to have people find that out.
“I remember I always got asked why I was a virgin. So that was the storyline that they wanted to run with, and I hated it ’cause I didn’t want that pressure, and then I also didn’t want people digging in because at that time I had hooked up with men,” he says.
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Haley is a recent IU grad with a degree in journalism and apparel merchandising. She loves to indulge her guilty pleasures by watching or writing about reality TV. In her free time, you can find her wandering around IKEA looking for cool furniture or playing with her cat Bagel.