Colton Underwood Reveals Strategic Relationships With Married Men Before Coming Out as Gay

Colton Underwood has revealed that he deliberately restricted intimate relationships to married men while hiding his sexuality, as a calculated strategy to protect himself from being outed before he was ready. The 34-year-old former NFL linebacker and television personality made the disclosure on the We Need to Talk podcast, explaining that this approach stemmed from deep fear about how exposure could damage both his football and entertainment careers. Underwood came out publicly as gay in 2021 and is now married to political strategist Jordan C. Brown-Underwood.

Strategic Self-Protection in the Closet

During his podcast appearance, Underwood described the logic behind his boundary. "The only way that I could think of to protect myself is I would only hook up with married men," he explained, noting that these individuals "had more to lose than I did." By pursuing men who were already in committed heterosexual relationships, Underwood believed he had constructed a safeguard: should any of these men threaten to expose him, they risked revealing their own infidelity and jeopardizing their families and reputations.

Underwood's caution reflected the stakes he perceived at the time. After signing with the San Diego Chargers in 2014 as an outside linebacker, he spent nearly two seasons on practice squads for multiple teams—Philadelphia Eagles and Oakland Raiders—before being released in 2016. Later, when he transitioned to reality television as a contestant on Becca Kufrin's season of The Bachelorette, the stakes shifted but remained high. He subsequently became the lead of The Bachelor in 2019 at age 26, a position that significantly amplified his public profile.

The Virgin Bachelor and Hidden Truth

A central storyline of Underwood's Bachelor season centered on his virginity, a narrative he now acknowledges obscured deeper personal struggles. Producers emphasized his status as the "Virgin Bachelor," but Underwood revealed the virginity claim contained a significant omission. "There were so many reasons why I was a virgin," he stated, adding that his sexuality struggle was "the one that I didn't tell publicly." He also disclosed that he harbored a belief that losing his virginity to a woman might somehow make him heterosexual—a psychological pattern he now recognizes as denial. Becoming The Bachelor itself, he admitted, represented an attempt to convince himself of his straightness through maximum public visibility: "I'm going to be so publicly straight that I will never be able to be gay again," he recalled thinking at the time.

In September 2024, Underwood and Brown-Underwood welcomed their son, Bishop Colton Brown-Underwood, through surrogacy, marking a significant chapter in his openly gay life.