Colton Underwood Explains Why He Regrets Not Coming Out Years Ago

Colton Underwood is opening up about why he waited to come out as gay and why he regrets not doing it sooner.

The 29-year-old former The Bachelor star chatted with Variety for a new interview in which he said he knew he was different by age six and knew he was attracted to men in his early teenage years.

Colton‘s regrets have to do with his career in the NFL.

Click inside to find out what he had to say…

When football player Michael Sam came out as gay in 2014, Colton says he wishes he did the same.

“I had the opportunity in 2014 when I entered the draft. Michael Sam came out,” he said before telling the reporter that he wasn’t brave enough to do the same at the time.

“The football and athletic community is not ready for gay people,” Colton said in the interview.

Colton says that Michael‘s coming out drove him further into the closet after he saw the way other football players reacted to the news.

“I’ve had a conversation with Michael about this, since I came out. I just sort of had a heart-to-heart with him,” Colton said. “I said, ‘I just want to let you know that you should have given me the confidence to stand up and say, ‘You’re not alone.’ But unfortunately, I went to a different locker room. And I told him, ‘In the locker room that I was in, they didn’t say nice things about you.’”

“I was like, ‘I’m sorry because I could have tried to help you by coming out with you, and then seen if that caused another to come out,’” he added. “But I didn’t have the courage and I wasn’t at a point in my life where I was ready to come out — if anything, Michael Sam coming out and being so public about it put me in the closet even further because I didn’t want to be like Michael, in the sense that I didn’t want it to be negative or bad.”

Colton also positively talked about his hopes for the future.

“I want a partner and a husband more than anything, and I want a family. I want kids, I want dogs, I want the whole nine yards, and I never knew that was possible until I came out and got to lean into my truth,” he said. “I can, for the first time in my life, actually picture myself with a family — and my family looks a little different than when I pictured it four or five years ago, but it just makes me happy, even thinking about it.”

Colton also talked about his experiences with men thus far and what finally pushed him to come out publicly.