Nervous, but happy to finally be himself and accept himself, Colton Underwood shared with the world today that he is gay. He hid his true self all his life , wanting to be heterosexual, praying for it on the day he found out he was chosen to be the “Bachelor” in 2019, and thinking this was the answer to being happy.
It wasn’t the answer. As Colton told Robin Roberts, who also went through a similar experience of waiting to be her whole self publicly until 2013, coronavirus and the pandemic led him to really look at himself and face and work through his fears. He didn’t know you can be Christian and gay, or be gay and have kids. He heard the term gay used negatively throughout his childhood. Sadly, he said he would rather die than say he was gay. He didn’t know he could be happy being himself. Luckily, he found out how wrong he was…#itgetsbetter.
Colton apologized to his ex-girlfriend who he chose from the “Bachelor”, Cassie:
“I would like to say sorry for how things ended, I messed up I made a lot of bad choices. I loved everything about her, and it’s hard for me to articulate my emotions and going through that relationship with her because I obviously had an internal fight going on. I’m sorry for any pain and emotional stress I caused, I wish it wouldn’t have happened the way it did. I wish I would have been courageous enough to fix myself before I broke anyone else.”
That last line is so expressive. You can really feel what he means.
Colton was nervous in his announcement, but happy for his future and being himself – all of himself, with the support of his family and friends.
What is next for Colton: “Life. I mean I get to breathe. I get to…take all this weight off my back and my shoulders. And, I get to publicly and outwardly be happy and be me – all of me.”
Colton Underwood with is dad Scott and Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy, in West Village, NY, before the interview.
Credit: The Image Direct
#BeYou
Anyone else thinking of John Legend’s song “All of Me”?
The more we learn about someone, the easier it is to appreciate who they are. We aim at Me We Too to connect people and grow from the “other” mentality by showing how similar we all can be in lots of ways, while appreciating our differences. It’s about knowing each other’s story.
Don Lemon explained this “other” mentality stemming from not interacting with others, and not getting to know them, direct from the heart with his buddy and fellow CNN anchor Chris Cuomo:
Don Lemon: “Often times, when you don’t have a relationship with people like that, you don’t know them, you don’t see their humanity. But to you, it’s “other”. And, listen, you know where we live, there are people who have issues, people we see all the time…but we see them as human. People see their own, or their neighbors, as human. And it’s about time, especially as you said, for white people to see black people as human. Even if you can’t – why can’t you relate to them? Because often times you don’t interact with them. So you may see George Floyd as this character who you see as criminal, but to the people who live in that neighborhood, he’s one of them, he’s their neighbor. They know his story. And, he may have – he may not be the perfect human being – who is? I’m not perfect, are you Chris?”
Chris Cuomo: I couldn’t be any farther from it.
Don Lemon: Ok, so then, George Floyd isn’t perfect either.
Not just a coronavirus pandemic have-to because the hair salon is closed…George Clooney is also one of the people who cuts his own hair because that’s the way he likes it. On Jimmy Kimmel Live, Clooney gave a demo on how he has cut his own hair in 2 minutes for the past 25 years since he bought the Flowbee:
There’s arachnophobia – a fear of spiders – and then there’s this. Jake Gray from Australia posted this picture of a 15cm wide Banded Huntsman Spider named Charlotte who lives with him and his family, on the Australian spider identification Facebook page:
There are lots of posts on the coronavirus pandemic and quarantine experience – such as running low on toilet paper (just a USA thing it seems!). And there are also all other kinds of posts, people sharing about who they are and their experiences. Join the fun!
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson accepted the Generation Award Monday night at the 2019 MTV Movie & TV Awards with an inspiring speech of how he decided to just be himself in Hollywood, and values being nice over being “important”:
“The most powerful thing that we can be is ourselves,” he said, before going back in time and recalling his early interactions with the Hollywood machine, when the six-foot-four, 275-pound pro wrestler showed up ready for new opportunities. “They didn’t know what the hell to do with me,” he said.
At first, he was convinced to change himself in order to fit into their mold. It took him a few years to realize that he didn’t actually have to do that. “I wasn’t going to conform to Hollywood; Hollywood was going to conform to me,” he said. “So, Hollywood conformed to me and here I am with all of you getting the Generation Award…
“That’s not enough,” The Rock said. “Because there’s another side to being your authentic self, your true self, and that’s the side that the magic is on. That’s the side that’s gold.”
…“You gotta recognize the joy and the responsibility of bringing everybody with you. We bring everybody with us, and you do that by being kind, by being compassionate, by being inclusive, and straight-up just being good to people because that matters,” he said. “And if you can hit that place, that’s when you become powerful, that’s when you become influential, that’s when you can have real global influence in a positive way.”
If English isn’t your first language – or if you feel like testing out your language skills 🙂 – this update is for you! You can now use the Me We Too app in the language of your choice – 104 languages available to choose from! Download the update on Google Play or the App Store.
We’ve taken the Me We Too app translations a step further to make it more user friendly worldwide and help connecting easier. We already had the Translate button on each post to translate it into your preferred language, but now you can have the Me We Too app menus, categories, post page, notifications, etc. all translated too, automatically. Just set your preferred language on the Sign Up page, or update it on your Edit Profile page.
Thank you to our members requesting the Me We Too app translations in Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian. We hope you all enjoy it and we welcome your feedback!
Last Friday, the Disney channel played out what unconditional friendship looks like when revealing to your friend “I’m gay”, in the “One in a Minyan” episode of the tv show Andi Mack. Cyrus Goodman, played by Joshua Rush, is the first openly gay character to ever say the words on the Disney Channel. He told his two best girl friends (Andi Mack played by Peyton Elizabeth Lee and Buffy Driscoll played by Sofia Wylie) in two earlier episodes, and this time just came out and said the words to his best guy friend Jonah Beck (Asher Angel) when he felt the time was right: “Ok, well, that of course is Aunt Ruthie’s kugel, that’s your classic bagel and lox, that’s gefilte fish, skip that, and, I’m gay.” Jonah’s response: “Cool”. You can watch that part of the episode below:
Awesomely, it’s fiction playing out the reality of what happened when Jonathan Hurwitz, the writer of this Andi Mack episode, told his best guy friend in a similiar ‘rip-off-the-bandaid’ fashion that he’s gay and got the same surprising and relieving “Cool” response.
“In the writer’s room, I shared a personal story about how nervous I was to come out to a college friend back in 2010. While grabbing burgers one afternoon, he asked me to pass the ketchup, so I handed him the bottle while mumbling the words, ‘I’m gay.,'” Hurwitz wrote. “He looked up at me, said ‘Cool,’ then proceeded to put ketchup on his burger as if I hadn’t just revealed my most personal, deepest truth. I remember thinking: That’s it?! After a ten-year journey to come out to myself, I finally come out to my friend and all I get is a ‘Cool?!’ But what I ultimately realized was that my friends and family loved me unconditionally before I’d even learned to truly love myself.”
And this part – this is just what Me We Too is about – being loved just the way you are, no matter how “weird” or “different”:
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“In spite of Cyrus’ nerves about telling Buffy, Andi, and now Jonah, he continually underestimates how much people accept him for who he is,” he wrote. “No matter how ‘weird’ or ‘different’ he feels (his words from Season One), his friends will always be right by his side, loving and supporting him.”
Just like Cyrus’s friends didn’t push him to “come out of the closet” sooner than it felt right, Good Morning America reports,
According to Brock Dumville, M.P.H. and Senior Crisis Services Manager for The Trevor Project, “the best way to support your friend would be to celebrate them for making choices that feel healthy for them, including if that is choosing not to come out.”
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Colton Underwood with is dad Scott and Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy, in West Village, NY, before the interview.
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