Underwood Played Damage Control After Fear Of Being Outed For Attending A Bathhouse
By now you probably know Colton Underwood for his sexuality: He’s gay. After starring in The Bachelor in 2019 trying to find love with a woman (and a previous stint as a contestant vying to win the love of a female Bachelorette in 2018), Underwood recently came out last month in a widely publicized and promoted interview that left every housewife in America stunned, but the gay community seemingly knowing what we’ve already known. At first the LGBTQ+ community poured support in masses for Underwood, but that was taken back when it came out a day after his coming out announcement that he was going to helm his own reality docuseries on exploring his new gay life with a “gay guide” who is Olympian Gus Kenworthy – essentially Underwood’s doppelganger and someone who had only came out of the closet a few years prior and mingles with the A-List gay celebrities.
Basically, most of the gay community felt duped into a public relation scheme made to uplift Underwood (and Kenworthy) as champions of the gay community. It left everyone with a bad taste in their mouth and social media had been reaching out to Netflix to cancel Underwood’s show before it began streaming, since it’s filmed. Now, Underwood’s team is circling into the media once again trying to do damage control with a recent interview to get the audience back on his side with his latest plea for sympathy.
According to Variety, Underwood had been honest with his sexuality to his Publicist after being outed, and subsequently blackmailed, by a fan who witnessed a nude Underwood at a “gay men’s spa” in Los Angeles and took photographs in 2019. Underwood claims he was there “just to look”. This got the wheels turning on how to perform his announcement. Prior to that, he notes that he had discreetly rented the popular gay romance movie, Brokeback Mountain, hooked up with men before his Bachelor journey, and anonymously used Grindr. He continued the truthful narrative that his upbringing in small-town Illinois being conservative and Catholic had him hide and feel awful over his homosexuality. Underwood also tells of his docuseries, which explores his journey speaking with a variety of niches within the LGBTQ+ community as he explores his privilege as a “Ken-doll like” white, masculine man. He came out to his family within the docuseries while cameras were present, to no surprise to his father.
While taking candid photos of someone nude and with intended blackmail is absolutely appalling and illegal; this appears to be a suspicious PR grab to gain Underwood sympathy from the gay community, or others in the Bachelor Nation fandom that will tune into his docuseries. Unfortunately, it seems Kenworthy is already failing as his duties of being a “gay guide”, because a quick Google search of gay men’s spas in Los Angeles comes up as what any gay person knows the term to be: A bathhouse. He clearly hasn’t learned the language yet! After Underwood released information that he’s always known he was gay and was doing a bunch of gay things in the closet, like searching where to go freely be gay, like a bathhouse.
Overall, his coming out story is certainly working for him and he’ll be in the gay spotlight a lot – we’re sure he’ll win an award for his bravery from some gay media. It will be interesting to see if Underwood is willing to bend his deep-rooted beliefs, since it appears he feels guilty for being gay while also being Catholic and conservative – despite those gay, Catholic conservatives being a niche within the LGBTQ+ community already. There also shouldn’t be any shame in exploring a bathhouse.
However, when you combine all of this together, especially Underwood filming his coming out with his family present for the first time – it all seems like one big stunt to keep Underwood famous and earning those desirable, pink dollars and rubbing elbows with the gay, A-List celebs, who he has been seen on social media with. Maybe he’ll get a role in the next American Horror Story season? It worked for Kenworthy…
Will you be tuning into Underwood’s reality docuseries? In the meantime, you can check out his video-interview with Variety below:
Writer’s Note A: This is the opinion of one Instinct Magazine contributor and does not reflect the views of Instinct Magazine itself or fellow contributors.
Source: Variety
As much as I hate to use the term “white privilege” that’s exactly what he entitled himself to be.
Not being honest to all the producers, creators, staff and cast of the show (especially those women) is just downright appalling and unforgivable.
He’s basically getting a slap on the wrist, and gets whatever he wants the f to do: book deals, shows, etc. I don’t even know why Robin Roberts agreed to interview him. She should’ve just dropped him. Instead, he was enabled for TV ratings.
If he was of a different color, he would not have gotten the same treatment and coddled by the media.
He is gross, no sympathy! You lied just to get on tv, were about to get outed for spreading your germ’s in a bathhouse and now you want everyone to hug you and embrace you and make you a gay A Lister, uh… NOPE! You are a hypocrite and give the gay community a black eye. Go away!
Never heard of him before, but he looks sweet and genuine.
Now that he is out he should go after this blackmailed by making a police report. It would give this whole blackmail story some credibility too.