Weeks ago, Bachelor star Colton Underwood came out as gay on national television — he now says he was blackmailed to come out.
“I’ll just say it,” he said. “I, at one point, during my rock bottom and spiral, was getting blackmailed. Nobody knows I was blackmailed,” he told Variety. He said that he was sent an email threatening blackmail after he went to a spa “just to look,” but somehow took nude phoos of him at the venue.
“[I] should never have been there,” he told Variety.
He then forwarded the message to his publicist, who advised him to come out.
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“I knew that out of anybody in my world, my publicist wasn’t going to ruin me,” Colton said.
He said his parents are proud of him after coming out.
“My dad is proud to say that he is a conservative Republican, and he is also proud to say, ‘I have a gay son,'” he said. “I think it’s important for America to hear that and see that. Right now, the media makes it seem like there is no middle ground.”