The Bachelor alum Ben Higgins has slammed Colton Underwood and accused him of lying while promoting his new Netflix docu-reality series, Coming Out Colton.
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The Season 23 The Bachelor star, who publicly announced he's gay on Good Morning America in April, also noted of his coming-out journey, "I will say this: Chris was about the only one from the franchise who really reached out and sort of let me know that he was there for me and [asked] if there's anything he can do... Unfortunately, I don't have really any relationships in the franchise anymore."
But according to Ben, who starred on Season 20 of The Bachelor, that's simply not true!
"That's just a lie. It is," Ben told his co-host Ashley Iaconetti during the December 8 episode of The Ben and Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast.
Ben said of Coming Out Colton, which premiered December 3 on Netflix, "I haven't seen it."
"Colton came out this week and said that nobody from Bachelor Nation reached out to him, kind of after coming out, and that's just not true," Ben claimed.
"So it kind of erupted my gut a little bit."
Ben acknowledged it "kind of" makes him uninterested in ever watching Colton's docu-reality series now.
"Maybe that's pride and maybe I need to get over that, and maybe I will. But you know, I know of multiple people that did, including myself, including friends of mine -- that reached out to him," Ben insisted.
"So I don't know why he's saying that. Like, I just don't get it. I don't know if that's a good headline, I don't know if it makes the rest of us look unsupportive, or what."
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Ashley said she was well aware Ben had touched base with Colton after learning the former pro football player is gay along with "a couple other" people who probably showed their support for Colton.
"I mean, I sent him a book about how you navigate -- from a buddy of mine -- being a Christian and coming out!" Ben complained.
"Really?!" Ashley asked with surprise in her voice.
"So I really don't understand some of this stuff sometimes," Ben vented. "It's like, 'Are you just trying to make everybody else look bad and for people to feel bad?' Because like, Colton, I know people who did, including myself!"
"And so, that's just a lie," Ben reiterated.
Colton and Ben, who found fame on JoJo Fletcher's season of The Bachelorette, also both currently live in Denver, CO.
"So, I don't understand that," Ben continued. "But I haven't watched it yet."
Colton actually contradicts his claim to Us Weekly right within his Netflix show.
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"Onyeka was one of the 30 girls that was on my season of The Bachelor," Colton says in a confessional. "After my [GMA] interview, I remember seeing her tweet."
Onyeka had tweeted at the time, "Happy for @colton for speaking his truth. We support you."
Colton went on to say, "She was one of the first women to reach out, and it meant a lot to me."
Not only is Onyeka someone other than Chris Harrison, but in saying Onyeka was "one of the first women to reach out," Colton is also clearly suggesting multiple bachelorettes from his season contacted him to show support following the announcement he's gay.
"I was nervous to talk to you or other women who were on my season because I don't want you guys to feel duped or betrayed or like I wasted your time. I guess in reality, I had no business being the Bachelor," Colton told Onyeka on his Netflix series.
"I just mentally was not in a good place. I remember saying, 'Thank you, God, for making me the Bachelor. You're going to finally answer my prayers by making me straight. This is my chance to find a wife and now I have nowhere to run.'"
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Colton apparently thought getting engaged would lead to marriage and then having children, which Colton apparently hoped would make him straight.
Colton selected Cassie Randolph as the winner of his The Bachelor season, which filmed in late 2018 and aired in early 2019, but Cassie did not want to get engaged and took her time falling in love with the former athlete in the real world.
Colton and Cassie dated for about 18 months and discussed getting engaged before announcing their breakup in May 2020.
What started out as an amicable split last year turned nasty when Cassie accused Colton of trying to "monetize" their breakup by writing about it in his The First Time memoir as well as stalking and harassing her, which resulted in Cassie filing a restraining order against the former NFL player in September 2020 followed by a police report several weeks later.
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.
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Cassie was asked to appear on Coming Out Colton but declined, according to Variety.
On Ben and Ashley's December 8 podcast, Ashley expressed surprise Colton had never warned Cassie or given her a heads-up that he'd be coming out gay on national television before his headline-making GMA interview this past spring.
"That's crazy," Ashley noted. "He does allude to him not being able to speak about certain things publicly, and maybe because of legal issues he can't even reach out to Cassie himself. But I don't know."
Ben said Cassie is "obviously affected by all of this" and is "definitely entitled" to her opinion of allegedly wanting to separate herself from Colton's storyline.
Colton told Variety in May that he and Cassie had agreed not to discuss the details of their relationship in the press, but he insisted, he "did not physically touch or physically abuse Cassie in any way, shape or form."
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Colton is now dating and in love with political strategist Jordan C. Brown, and Cassie moved on with musician Brighton Reinhardt, with whom she reportedly couldn't be happier.
Colton told GMA earlier this year that 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.
Colton even appeared on The Bachelor franchise three times, not just once.
Before starring as the Bachelor, Colton competed on The Bachelorette 14 starring Becca Kufrin and also looked for love on Bachelor in Paradise 5, when he dated Tia Booth.
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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 lamented of Cassie, "I don't know if I ever will get the chance to sit down and talk with her. I would like to. 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."
Colton added at the time how he's sorry from the bottom of his heart.
"I'm sorry for the pain and emotional stress I caused. I wish it wouldn't have happened the way it did," Colton acknowledged, adding that he regrets how he had misled his The Bachelor bachelorettes.
"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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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
