This morning on the highly-promoted sit-down interview with GMA’s Robin Roberts, former ‘Bachelor’ lead Colton Underwood, revealed that he was gay and that he has finally come to terms with it.

The ex-football star shared: “Obviously this year’s been a lot for a lot of people, and it’s probably made a lot of people look themselves in the mirror and figure out who they are and what they’ve been running from or what they’ve been putting off in their lives. For me, I’ve ran from myself for a long time and I’ve hated myself for a long time, and I’m gay. I came to terms with that that earlier this year and have been processing it. The next step in all of this was sort of letting people know. I’m still nervous, but it’s been a journey for sure. I’m like the happiest and healthiest I’ve ever been in my life. That means the world to me.”

Underwood expressed he went through a very dark time to be able to reveal his truth: “I got into a place in my personal life that was dark and bad. I can list a bunch of different things, but they’d all be excuses. I think overall the reason why now is because I got to a place where I didn’t think I was ever going to share this. I would rather have died than say ‘I’m gay,’ and I think that was sort of my wake up call. There was a moment in L.A. that I woke up and I didn’t think I was going to wake up,” he said. “I didn’t have the intentions of waking up, and I did. And I think for me that was my wake up call, that, ‘This is your life. Take back control.’ I think looking back even beyond that is… even just suicidal thoughts and driving my car close to a cliff, like, ‘Oh, if this goes off the cliff, it’s not that big of a deal.’ I don’t feel that anymore.”’

As to the questions or anger that ‘Bachelor Nation’ are going to have that Underwood misled the female contestants on his season, or he duped the audience, Colton said: “I thought a lot about this…Do I regret being ‘The Bachelor?’ And handling it the way that I did?’  I do think I could have handled it better, I’ll say that. I just wish I wouldn’t have dragged people into my own mess of figuring out who I was. I genuinely mean that, but also at the same time I can say ‘I’m sorry’ to all of those women, I can also say ‘thank you,’ because without them and without the ‘Bachelor’ franchise, I don’t know if this would have ever come out.”

Colton was highly-promoted during his season as the “Virgin Bachelor”.  He acknowledged he was indeed a virgin at that time, but it was because he was gay, but just “didn’t know how to handle it”.   Underwood also shared he was thankful to God that he was cast on the reality-competition as one of its season’s leads because he thought that would make him straight.  He told Roberts in his talk with God, ‘Finally, you’re letting me be straight. Finally, you’re giving me a wife, a fiancée, and then I’m going to have the kids, then I’m going to have the house, and then I’m going to have all this.’

Photo: JPI

As to his contentious break-up with ‘Bachelor’ contestant, Cassie Randolph, where she had at one time had a restraining order put on Underwood and later revoked it, he admitted: “I would like to say sorry for how things ended. I messed up, I made a lot of bad choices.”  But told Robin Roberts, he indeed loved Cassie, sharing, “That only made it harder and more confusing for me. if I’m being very honest, I loved everything about her. And it’s hard for me to articulate exactly what my emotions were, and going through that relationship with her was, because I obviously had an internal fight going on. I would just say that I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart. I’m sorry for any pain and emotional stress I caused. I wish it wouldn’t have happened the way it did. I wish that I would have been courageous enough to fix myself before I broke anybody else.”

Underwood shared that his upbringing in the Catholic church and being in the world of high school, college, and pro sports contributed to why he never came out previously, citing,: ” learned in the Bible that gay is a sin. I had made mistakes in my sports and in my athletic career, and when you make mistakes, ‘that play was gay’ or that was a bad… gay was always affiliated with a connotation of negativity, and I think there’s a lot of things when I look back, like, ‘No wonder I held it in.’”

So, were you surprised that Colton revealed he was gay? How do you feel about the journey he expressed in his interview on GMA to speak his truth? Share your thoughts via the comment section below.

JUST IN: Former “Bachelor” star @Colton Underwood speaks his truth and comes out to @robinroberts: “I’m gay. And I came to terms with that earlier this year and have been processing it… I’m the happiest and healthiest I’ve ever been in my life.” https://t.co/PoYJUAPBpA pic.twitter.com/isP7SptUu7

— Good Morning America (@GMA) April 14, 2021