Colton Underwood

So Colton Underwood, former star of The Bachelor, has come out as a gay man. He talked to Robin Roberts about it this morning (Wednesday, April 14), on Good Morning America, saying he had spent a lot of time running from his own truth and hating himself because of it. He told Roberts he thought that getting chosen as one of the contestants in 2018 on Becca Kufrin’s season of The Bacehlorette, where he became famous for being a virgin, and then being chosen as the star of Season 23 of The Bachelor would deliver his from being secretly gay (In case you, like me, don’t keep up with who’s who in the Bachelor/Bachelorette world, Underwood is the Bachelor who jumped the fence in his season and threatened the show mid-season.)

Of course, we all know that being on a reality TV competition show didn’t suddenly make him straight. But he didn’t help him come to terms with the truth of who he is, either Underwood told Roberts this morning that it wasn’t until he realized that he was seriously contemplating suicide that he finally began coming to terms with his sexuality. “… I’m gay. And I came to terms with that earlier this year and have been processing it. And the next step in all of this was sort of letting people know,” he said on GMA.

Pretty much every LGBTQ person in the world has had to go through some period of denial followed by acceptance when it comes to dealing with our sexuality. For some the journey was long and tortuous; for others it was much quicker and easier. Some of us never reach a place of accepting ourselves; some reach acceptance so easily we might not even realize we ever actually struggled with it. For most, the truth lies somewhere between those extremes. Anyone who has ever spent any time at all struggling with their identity in some way can understand how Colton Underwood has been feeling, and we can all celebrate his new-found self acceptance with him.

But as it turns out, he has more than just self-acceptance to celebrate today; it turns out he has a new reality show, too. As TMZ announced this morning in an “exclusive” report, “the former Bachelor star has had a film crew following him for the past few weeks, and the show — focusing on his life as a gay man — will air on Netflix.”

The TMZ report continues, “We’re told several other prominent members of the LBGTQ+ community have been in Colton’s corner throughout this process — such as his friend, Olympian Gus Kenworthy — and will make appearances alongside him in the series.”

— Tammye Nash