People
NEW YORK —
Colton Underwood, the former football tight end who found fame on “The Bachelor,” has revealed that he is gay.“I’ve ran from myself for a long time. I’ve hated myself for a long time,” Underwood told “Good Morning America” on Wednesday. “And I’m gay. And I came to terms with that earlier this year and have been processing it. And the next step in all of this was sort of letting people know.”Underwood tried out briefly for a handful of NFL teams before his professional football career ended in 2016. Three years later, he won over Cassie Randolph on Season 23 of “The Bachelor,” a show centered on a single bachelor who is asked to select a wife from a pool of romantic interests. Underwood and Randolph never married.“Every LGBTQ person’s journey to discovering and accepting their authentic self is different, and Colton Underwood’s decision to share his truth with the public reminds us that there is no set timeline for coming out,” said Anthony Allen Ramos, head of talent for GLAAD.“Given the large and loyal fandom who know Colton from `The Bachelor,’ his coming out and discussion of his faith will hopefully open eyes to the millions of out and proud LGBTQ people who are also people of faith.”Underwood said he finally got to a place where he could be honest with himself after 2020, the year that made people “look at 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.”Reaction to the news came from Andy Cohen — “You’re free now” he told Underwood on Twitter — and Billy Eichner, who said he was happy for Underwood. “If you’re gay, be gay!”Before headlining “The Bachelor,” Underwood appeared on the 14th season of “The Bachelorette” and season 4 of “Bachelor in Paradise.” He has a book, titled “The First Time.”Randolph filed a restraining order against Underwood, later claiming that he placed a tracking device on her car. He denied the allegations and the police order was dropped.———Los Angeles —
Morgan Wallen peeked out from Cancellation Land on Tuesday with an update on where his head’s at after his recent behavior and a racist slur effectively got him banned from country music.The “Whisky Glasses” singer also announced he won’t be playing any concerts this summer, including a planned tour with fellow country star Luke Bryan.“I know my corner hasn’t been the most popular one to stand in recently, but many of you did anyway,” the musician said in a four-page handwritten note posted on Instagram, his first communication since a Feb. 10 apology video.After detailing his awe at the record-setting performance of “Dangerous: The Double Album,” despite his troubles, Wallen explained, “I wanted to let you guys know that I’ve taken a couple months away + feel like I’ve really worked on myself. I’m proud of the work I’ve put in, & in many ways thankful to have had the time to do it. I’ve needed this time off.”The hammer came down quickly on the singer-songwriter - then country’s hottest act — after video surfaced in early February of him calling a friend the N-word in his driveway. Wallen would later explain that the video showed him on “hour 72 of 72 of a bender.”He was quickly pulled from major radio networks, from streaming services’ playlists and from TV network CMT; disqualified from the Academy of Country Music’s 2021 awards; and “suspended” by his record label.But it wasn’t all bad: Fans rallied to support him, and “Dangerous: The Double Album” stayed at No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart for a record-setting 10 weeks, the most ever by a core country artist.From combined wire services
