The Bachelorette alum Hannah Brown has revealed that she felt like "something was off" with Colton Underwood in that he didn't seem to enjoy kissing her while they filmed The Bachelor's 23rd season.
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Hannah became smitten with Colton, a former pro football player, after watching him compete for Becca Kufrin's heart on The Bachelorette's fourteenth season and so she told producers during The Bachelor casting process that she would only go on Season 23 if Colton was the lead, Us Weekly reported.
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Hannah reportedly wrote in her memoir, God Bless This Mess: Learning to Live and Love Through Life's Best (and Worst) Moments, that she took a "total leap of faith" with $70 in her checking account when she chose to appear on The Bachelor.
But her excitement about Colton apparently wore off when she could tell something wasn't quite right about their connection.
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While getting to know Colton -- who announced to the world he's gay in April 2021 -- Hannah wrote in her book that she "kept getting the feeling that something was off... Like he didn't even want to be kissing me," according to Us.
However, Hannah said she ignored her gut instinct because Colton checked off all of her boxes and seemed perfect on paper.
Hannah also recalled Colton reassuring her and giving her words of affirmation whenever she'd question their connection on the show.
Hannah and Colton dated in late 2018 and then his The Bachelor season aired in early 2019.
Hannah shared how finding out Colton is gay more than two years later "helped" her to understand why something had been lacking in their romance.
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"[I] better understand why things just felt a little off between us -- because he felt off with himself," Hannah shared in her memoir. "He wasn't living the truth."
Colton selected Cassie Randolph as his The Bachelor winner and they dated for about 18 months before announcing their split in May 2020.
Colton is currently starring in a new Netflix series, Coming Out Colton, which debuted Friday, December 3, and a trailer of the new show released Monday and showed Colton confronting the mistakes of his past, including how he had misled his The Bachelor contestants.
Colton admits in the footage, "The reason I'm coming out is because I'm ashamed and sort of mortified for what got me to this position in the first place. I put a poor girl through hell of my own insecurities."
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Cassie allegedly had no idea Colton was gay during their romance.
Colton previously said on Good Morning America, the show on which he chose to come out, 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 called himself "a miserable person living as a shell of a human being" while pretending to be straight for well over a decade.
Not only did he star on The Bachelor and compete on The Bachelorette, but he also dated Tia Booth on Bachelor in Paradise's fifth season.
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After coming out as gay on GMA, Colton revealed to Variety he had experimented sexually with men prior to appearing on Becca's season of The Bachelorette in 2018, which preceded his Bachelor in Paradise and The Bachelor stints.
Colton disclosed that 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.
"When I say 'hookups,' not sex," confirmed Colton, who had met these men under a false name in 2016 or 2017 through Grindr, a gay dating app. "I want to make that very clear that I did not have sex with a man, prior to that."
In special GMA footage that aired April 15 on ABC's Nightline, Colton revealed that he hadn't spoken to Cassie "at all" about his decision to come out as gay. She apparently had no warning or heads up before the public was made aware of his sexuality.
"I don't know if I ever will get the chance to sit down and talk with her. I would like to," Colton said at the time. "I would like to say sorry for how things ended. I messed up. I made a lot of bad choices."
He continued, "I made mistakes at the end of that relationship and I ruined the good memories we had by my actions and what I did to hold on to being straight because I didn't want to look myself in the mirror. So for that, I'm extremely, extremely sorry."
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Despite being attracted to men during the course of their relationship, Colton confirmed he was definitely in love with Cassie, which made acknowledging he's gay and his decision to come out to his family and the public even "harder and more confusing" for him.
"If I'm being very honest, I loved everything about her and it's hard for me to articulate what my emotions were in going through that relationship with her because I obviously had an internal fight going on," Colton explained on GMA.
"I would just say that I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart. I'm sorry for the pain and emotional stress I caused. I wish it wouldn't have happened the way it did."
Colton added, "I wish I would have been courageous enough to fix myself before I broke anybody else... Do I regret handling [The Bachelor] the way that I did? I do. I do think I could've handled it better... I just wish I didn't drag people into my own mess of figuring out who I was."
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