NEWSColton Underwood 'Only Hooked Up With Married Straight Men' to 'Protect' Himself Before Coming Out: 'They Had More to Lose'
Colton Underwood opened up about the life he was living before the cameras ever turned on.
June 17 2026, Updated 2:50 p.m. ET
Coming out is rarely simple, and for Colton Underwood, it was no different.
Long before he was ready to say the words out loud, he was quietly protecting a side of his life that no reality TV camera would ever capture.
Speaking on the "We Need to Talk" podcast, hosted by Paul C. Brunson, on Tuesday, June 16, the 34-year-old former Bachelor star talked about what it felt like to live in fear of being exposed before he ever had the chance to tell his own story.
'To Protect Myself, I Would Only Hook Up With Married Men'
Colton Underwood explained why he only ever hooked up with married men and the logic behind the rule he said he never broke.
Underwood said, “I was very careful, even when I was physically experimenting with guys and trying to, like, figure myself out, I was so careful on how I did everything.”
“To protect myself, I would only hook up with married men," he shared. "[Married] ‘straight’ men. So that was sort of my rule that I would never break. 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.”
Underwood went on, “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.”
More Than a Storyline
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- Former Bachelor Colton Underwood Admits He 'Didn't Want To Be Gay' In 'Coming Out Colton' Trailer: Watch
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Colton Underwood reflected on how one confession ended up defining his entire public image.
Best known as the lead of The Bachelor's 2019 season, Underwood got his start in the franchise on The Bachelorette in Becca Kufrin's season, joining at 26 and quickly becoming one of the show's most talked-about figures.
He also made clear that his virginity becoming such a defining part of his public image was never something he sought out.
“I went into it like, my whole heart was like I’m not going to disclose to them that I’m a virgin no matter what." Going on to share that he, “literally told them I was a virgin on night one of The Bachelorette.”
“I opened it up immediately, and I just gave them everything which they loved, so that’s unfortunately how it sort of came to be, and then it became my entire storyline,” he continued.
For Underwood, it was a combination of his faith and the private battle he was fighting with his own identity that kept him celibate.
Chasing Straight
He was candid about spending years trying to convince himself otherwise before coming out officially in 2021.
Years of his life, he said, were spent believing something would eventually come along and make him different — taking the lead role on The Bachelor, he admitted, was no different.
“'I think I need to try this ... or maybe if I have s-- with a girl I will become straight,” the reality star recounted.
Underwood publicly came out as gay in 2021, finally stepping out of the life he had spent years trying to force himself into. He has been happily married to political strategist Jordan C. Brown-Underwood since 2023 after tying the knot in Napa Valley, Calif.
