Colton Underwood spoke about his upcoming Netflix reality show. The show is proceeding despite Change.org’s petition saying he should not have a platform amid the stalking allegations.

He revealed that he and Randolph actually started filming a reality show last summer, post-split, about their new relationship as friendly exes living in L.A. However, that friendship was obviously short-lived amid the allegations.

Later on, the blackmail incident led him to come out to his inner circle. He shifted his focus to a show about his journey coming out and that was what was ultimately sold to Netflix.

The petition to stop the stop has more than 35,000 petitions. However, Netflix’s VP of unscripted and documentary series Brandon Riegg told the outlet:

“Colton has been public about his past and the bad choices he’s made and this will be part of the show, too. While there is tension with providing a platform, we think his complicated story, which includes him taking accountability, is one others can learn from, and we trust Colton and the producers to address it in a thoughtful way.”

Underwood said he knew he was different at age 6. Moreover, during his freshman year in high school, he acknowledged he was gay. Colton spoke about how his conservative upbringing scared him into his closeted life.

He said he had no gay friends growing up in Illinois, and certainly no out ones on his football team. He recalled there being just out gay person in his town was “the butt of every joke.”

So he hid his truth. His father confronted him after discovering that he viewed gay porn on the computer. He was an eighth-grader. At that time, he denied being gay.

Later, he sneakily used a friend’s Blockbuster card. He rented films so his family wouldn’t accuse him of being gay. He recalled Ricky Martin privately being an inspiration to him after the singer came out in 2010. By then, Underwood was 18.

“Growing up in sports, I was taught that gay is wrong and gay is bad and football players are not gay. By the time I realized that I was gay, I didn’t want to be gay. It was easy for me to hide in plain sight behind a football mask and hunting and fishing and the things that this world tells us is ‘masculine’ and ‘manly. I would have done anything to see a gay football player,” he said.

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