Colton Underwood / Instagram

'The Bachelor' alum Colton Underwood: I'm only about 75% gay

By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 10/01/2023

The Bachelor alum Colton Underwood has opened up to his ex-bachelorette Hannah Brown about his sexuality and how he feels he's only 75% gay.

Hannah competed for Colton's heart on The Bachelor's 23rd season. Although he dumped and hurt Hannah on the show, she is now happily engaged to model Adam Woolard.

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Colton selected Cassie Randolph as his The Bachelor winner, but they broke up in May 2020 after 18 months of dating.

Colton then publicly announced he's gay in April 2021, and he went on to marry political strategist Jordan C. Brown in May 2023.

Colton dove into his The Bachelor experience and post-show life during the September 20 episode of Hannah's new "Better Tomorrow with Hannah Brown" podcast.

"It's taken a lot of therapy and a lot of self-work with my mental state and where I was at and who I believe I am, and this might confuse some people -- I still identify as a gay man, but on the spectrum, I would say I'm 75% gay," Colton explained to Hannah.

"There's still an attraction and appreciation and emotional connection that I can still have with women, but I don't want to pursue that."

Colton said he can't picture his life partner being a woman.

"My life partner is Jordan, a man," he noted, "and that's what I've always wanted."

But the former football player admitted he "never felt comfortable saying that."

Colton elaborated of his sexuality, "I honestly didn't even know that was the case until I sat with [Jordan] and really figured it out. But if I was to sit down and break it into percentages, give or take, that's about where it's at."

The former The Bachelor star reiterated how his percentages may be "confusing" to people.

"But I think that's where masculine and feminine energy, like, the sliding scale [comes in], and it changes. I think that's the easiest way for me to explain my sexuality and how I'm exploring that," Colton shared.

Colton recalled how being in the men's locker room was sports was particularly tough when the phrase "that's so gay" or the "F-word" were being tossed around.

Hannah then asked Colton if he was ever truly in love with a woman, seemingly hinting at his serious romance with Cassie, who has since moved on with her musician boyfriend Brighton Reinhardt.

"Yes," Colton responded, "and they've made me a better partner for my husband."

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Colton insisted he was "100 percent" speaking the truth, adding, "I feel like I have been in love multiple times and with different women and I've taken things from those relationships and applied them to my relationship with my husband."

Colton concluded that he's become "a much better partner" thanks to his past relationships.

Colton announced his engagement to Jordan in February 2022 after the pair had been dating for less than one year.

Colton took to Instagram at the time and teased the big announcement by posting a photo with Jordan and writing, "Life is going to be fun with you."

Jordan also posted a picture of Colton popping a champagne bottle and wrote, "The only time in my life I'm ok with wasting a bottle of champagne. I love you babe."

Colton and Jordan went Instagram official in early December 2021.

One day after Colton's docu-reality series Coming Out Colton premiered December 3, 2021 on Netflix, Colton posted photos of the pair on his Instagram Story and wrote to Jordan, "Happy birthday to my dog-loving, family man, corn-fed love."

"I wasn't really pursuing dating at first. But since then I found somebody and I am very much in love," Colton told People at the time.

Colton called Jordan a "great support" and added, "I'm the luckiest person to have him in my life." They had already met each other's family at that point.

Within a month of making their relationship public, Colton and Jordan purchased a $3 million home together in Sherman Oaks, CA.

"I was struggling with my sexuality but I had such a level of fear over being gay," Colton previously shared.

"Now that I've been out to myself for a year, it's the healthiest and happiest I've ever felt. And there is nothing I would ever want to be but gay."

Colton, however, decided against featuring Jordan in his Netflix docu-reality series.

"I have been through that. I have done that. Even going into the show, that was one of the conversations with the production company," Colton explained to Us Weekly in late 2021.

"I'm not in a space right now to really, like, put myself out there like that," he said. "I had a lot of self-discovery to do."

Colton assured Us, however, that he was "not hiding" his relationship and just wanted some privacy for the start of his first gay romance.

Before officially posting photos with one another, Colton made his attraction to Jordan known by commenting fire and heart emojis on a picture of Jordan wearing a suit to the Baby 2 Baby gala in November 2021.

Colton and Jordan were first linked in September 2021, when they were photographed kissing and flirting during a romantic getaway to a Four Seasons resort in Maui, HI.

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According to an eyewitness, the Season 23 The Bachelor star was "making out and snuggling" with Jordan by the hotel pool, Us reported at the time.

"They were tanning and swimming. They were very out in the open and not hiding their PDA!" the eyewitness added.

When Colton came out as gay on Good Morning America in April 2021, he said he had never experienced an "emotional connection" with a person of the same sex before and he was looking for a man who could challenge him.

Cassie admitted at the time she had no idea Colton was gay during the course of their relationship and was also never given a heads-up that he'd be coming out as gay on national television.

The former football player explained on GMA how he realized he was different at the age of six and came to the conclusion he's gay when he was a freshman in high school.

Colton said he hated himself "for a long time" and was "a miserable person living as a shell of a human being" while pretending to be straight for well over a decade.

In addition to having starred on The Bachelor, Colton also appeared on The Bachelorette 14 starring Becca Kufrin and Bachelor in Paradise 5 when he dated Tia Booth.

Colton has said in the press he thought being the Bachelor and dating Cassie could make him straight but he was ultimately lying to himself and he feels badly for having hurt so many women on his season.

When Cassie and Colton split in Spring 2020, their relationship was initially amicable.

But Colton and Cassie's breakup turned nasty in June 2020 when Colton got angry about Cassie appearing on a Bachelor special after they had agreed to handle their breakup privately.

Cassie thought she respected Colton's wishes and proceeded to accuse her ex of trying to "monetize" their breakup by writing about it in his The First Time memoir.

Colton allegedly put a tracking device on Cassie's car, sent her "unsettling" text messages, and would stand outside her apartment or her parents' house very late at night, which resulted in a restraining order against Colton that was ultimately dropped once a private agreement was reached in November 2020.