Colton Underwood Reveals He Felt Forced to Come Out After Being Blackmailed

Former Bachelor Colton Underwood just revealed he was blackmailed prior to coming out on “Good Morning America.”

In a new interview with Variety, he explained, “I’ll just say it. I, at one point, during my rock bottom and spiral, was getting blackmailed. Nobody knows I was blackmailed.”

He said he received an anonymous email from someone claiming they had taken nude photos of him at an L.A. spa known for catering to gay clientele. The person was threatening to “out” him to the press.

Colton said he was at the spa “just to look,” saying he “never should have been there.” He eventually went to his publicist for help.

“I knew that out of anybody in my world, my publicist wasn’t going to ruin me,” Underwood explained.

Underwood also explained that prior to joining Bachelor Nation he was on the Grindr app around 2016 under an alias. Despite having sexual experiences with men, he said he was still the “Virgin Bachelor.”

“I’ll say this… I was ‘the Virgin Bachelor,’ but I did experiment with men prior to being on ‘The Bachelorette.’”

He went on, “When I say ‘hookups,’ not sex. I want to make that very clear that I did not have sex with a man, prior to that.”

After finding fame, Underwood did constantly worry that a past hookup would sell him out. “I remember feeling so guilty, like ‘What the hell am I doing?’” he said of gay encounters. “It was my first time letting myself even go there, so much so that I was like, ‘I need ‘The Bachelorette’ in my life, so I could be straight.’”

Colton does see potential for a gay Bachelor in the future, saying, “I think they should discuss it. It should be a conversation.”