Colton Underwood hasn’t been shy about his past. But did his exes actually know he’d be talking about them on The Bachelor?
Colton Underwood has never exactly been the traditional leading man for The Bachelor. Obviously his most unique quality is his virginity, which has been spotlighted repeatedly throughout his season. Now he’s revealing a new way that he’s a little different than other Bachelors: he didn’t warn his exes that he would be talking about them on national television.
It’s actually not quite as shady as it sounds. In a recent interview with Us Weekly, Colton revealed that he never felt obligated to warn his exes because he wasn’t telling their story, he was simply telling his.
The most pertinent example of this was when Colton revealed to Caelynn that he, like her, had experience dealing with sexual trauma (read all the details here). He claimed that his first love had been sexually abused. He never named his ex outright, but it didn’t take a genius to realize that he was referring to Aly Raisman, the famed Olympic gymnast who testified against abusive doctor Larry Nassar.
Obviously, there are two sides to this story. Colton may claim that he was relating to Caelynn through his perspective, but that doesn’t change the fact that he was opening up about another person’s intimate trauma. Even if one was as open as Aly Raisman has been about the past, she may still personally feel that this is fundamentally her story to tell and no one else’s.
We definitely don’t think Colton had bad intentions here. Hey, we’re just glad he’s the Bachelor who is actually willing to open up! Still. . . was this his best route? Couldn’t he have given Aly or any other women a courtesy call that they may come up on his season of the show? It wouldn’t have been that hard.
The moment has passed and there’s not much we can do to change it. How do you feel? Was Colton well within his rights to keep his exes in the dark?