The Bachelor alum Colton Underwood is dating political strategist Jordan C. Brown four months after coming out as a gay man.
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Colton, 29, was photographed kissing and flirting with Jordan, 38, during a romantic getaway to a Four Seasons resort in Maui, HI, not long after Colton announced he's gay on Good Morning America in April, People reported.
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In photos published by TMZ on Wednesday, Colton and Jordan soaked in the sunshine by laying side by side on beach chairs, and they weren't shy about showing each other affection as Colton browsed through his phone and Jordan read a book.
According to an eyewitness, the Season 23 The Bachelor star was "making out and snuggling" with Jordan by the hotel pool, Us reported.
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"They were tanning and swimming. They were very out in the open and not hiding their PDA!" the eyewitness added.
Before putting their relationship on display, Colton posted a photo with Jordan and a friend, Gus Kenworthy, who participated in Colton's upcoming Netflix docu-series, on Instagram in June.
"Friends & family," Colton captioned the black-and-white selfie at the time. "I love y'all."
Jordan, who lives in Los Angeles, worked on John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 and also advised Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's Democratic campaigns in subsequent years.
Jordan is also dad to two 11-year-old daughters and the founder of One Blue Hill, which, according to his LinkedIn, "partners with high-profile celebrities, business leaders, and elected officials to achieve innovative advocacy and philanthropic goals."
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When Colton shared the news he's romantically interested in men after his devastating breakup from The Bachelor 23 winner Cassie Randolph, the former pro football player shared on GMA how, despite experimenting physically with men before, he's never experienced an "emotional connection" with a person of the same sex before.
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"I'm looking for someone who can push me and challenge me in all the right ways. I still have a long ways to go. I'm still learning," Colton said at the time.
Colton, however, previously said he'd like to keep his dating life somewhat of a mystery to the public.
In May, Colton conducted a Q&A with his followers on Instagram and ranted about an intrusive question asking how many men he has hooked up with, according to Us Weekly.
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"Let me vent for a second. Questions like this are inappropriate," Colton wrote on his Instagram Stories after sharing the question.
"I understand you might know me from The Bachelor where I shared a lot about my personal life. I have set boundaries and I'm respecting myself in a way that will lead me to a healthier life."
Colton starred on The Bachelor in 2019 after failing to win Becca Kufrin's heart on The Bachelorette's fourteenth edition. He also dated Tia Booth before his stint on Bachelor in Paradise's fifth season, which showed Colton breaking up with the Arkansas native.
After coming out as gay in April, Colton dished about what his life was like behind closed doors prior to appearing on The Bachelorette in 2018.
"I'll say this: I was 'The Virgin Bachelor,' but I did experiment with men prior to being on The Bachelorette," Colton told Variety, before disclosing he had a few sexual encounters with men when he was in his twenties but never had sex with a man or woman prior to his time on The Bachelor franchise.
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"When I say 'hookups,' not sex," confirmed Colton, who had met these men under a false name in 2016 or 2017 through a dating app called Grindr.
"I want to make that very clear that I did not have sex with a man, prior to that."
Colton's prior "Virgin Bachelor" label resulted in fans anticipating his Fantasy-Suite decisions on The Bachelor and wondering if he was going to have sex with his winner, Cassie.
But Colton said he wants to maintain some privacy in his life now that he's an openly-gay man.
"I never asked to be labeled as the virgin bachelor and have people feel the security to ask me questions about my sex life," Colton reportedly explained in the spring.
"It just happened and during that time I thought I had no other choice but to just go with it or the network would be mad. I know differently now. I'll share what I want and this won't be one of those things."
Colton, whose Netflix series premieres this fall, previously told Variety that he constantly worried about being "outed" by one of the men he had hooked up with. Colton feared being exposed and seeing his long-kept secret sold to the tabloids.
"I remember feeling so guilty, like 'What the hell am I doing?'" Colton recalled of his gay encounters.
"It was my first time letting myself even go there, so much so that I was like, 'I need The Bachelorette in my life, so I could be straight.'"
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Colton called himself "a miserable person living as a shell of a human being" while pretending to be straight for well over a decade.
Cassie, for example, had no idea Colton was gay during their entire year-and-a-half long relationship and only learned his sexual orientation when The Bachelor star came out publicly in April, according to People.
Colton said around the time of his May 2020 breakup from Cassie -- who has since moved on with boyfriend Brighton Reinhardt -- a person blackmailed him after he visited a spa in Los Angeles known for catering to gay clients.
Colton told Variety he went to the spa "just to look" and subsequently received an anonymous email from a person claiming to have taken nude photos of Colton at the location.
Colton said he was never shown the alleged photos and "should have never been there" at the spa to begin with.
The unidentified blackmailer reportedly threatened to "out" Colton in the press, and so a panicked Colton reached out to his publicist for guidance and support.
Colton has said in the press he went through a very dark time following his split with Cassie and even attempted suicide one evening.
Colton shared with GMA co-host Robin Roberts, however, that after hating himself for a long time, he finally accepted his sexuality earlier this year and has never been happier or healthier.
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