General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Coming Out Colton

Coming Out Colton is a six-episode American reality docuseries that premiered on Netflix on December 3, 2021, following former NFL player and Bachelor star Colton Underwood as he comes out as gay to his family, friends, and the public and begins living as an out member of the LGBTQ community.¹^•² It was produced by Jeff Jenkins Productions, with Jeff Jenkins, a producer of Keeping Up With the Kardashians and The Simple Life, as executive producer.²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Format	Six-episode unscripted reality docuseries, episodes roughly 29 to 37 minutes⁴
Premiere	December 3, 2021, all six episodes released at once on Netflix¹
Subject	Colton Underwood, former NFL player and lead of season 23 of The Bachelor, the first star of that series to come out as gay⁵
Executive producer	Jeff Jenkins (Jeff Jenkins Productions)²^•⁶
Rating	TV-MA (BBFC 15), with content notes for suicide references, sex references, and language⁴
Reception	57% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes (7 reviews); Metascore 40 on Metacritic, described as mixed or average²^•³

Spoilers

Content

The series follows Underwood through a sequence of private conversations that lead up to his public coming out, with each episode organized around a part of his life.¹¹ The six episodes are:

Family (29 min): Underwood opens up to his mother and plans further conversations; Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy offers advice.¹
Football (37 min): Ahead of Underwood's conversation with the coach from his high school days, three ex-NFL athletes who are gay, Michael Sam, David Kopay, and Esera Tuaolo, recount their own experiences.¹
Friends (32 min): In Nashville, Underwood bonds with country radio host Cody Alan, and Kenworthy throws him a coming-out party attended by gay celebrities.¹^•¹¹
Church (35 min): Underwood reflects on his relationship with God and connects with members of the Metropolitan Community Church.¹
The Public (31 min): Underwood decides to come out publicly on television; in New York City he visits the Stonewall Inn with his father and Kenworthy.¹
The Past & The Future (31 min): A wave of backlash reminds Underwood of his past choices, and he turns to friends and mentors, including the trans pastor Nicole Garcia, toward healing.¹^•¹²

The series ends a few days after the Good Morning America interview aired, giving viewers a specific sense of the production timeline.¹³ In the show, Underwood discusses growing up in a conservative, religious family, the expectations placed on him as an athlete and a Catholic, and the mental health toll of staying closeted; he reveals he took Xanax daily to manage depression and anxiety over possibly being gay.¹⁴^•¹⁵ His ex-girlfriend Cassie Randolph declined to be a part of the series.¹²

Background

Underwood rose to national fame as the lead of season 23 of ABC's The Bachelor in 2019, where 30 women competed for his attention and he gave his final rose to contestant Cassie Randolph.⁷^•⁸ In 2020, Randolph filed a restraining order against him for alleged stalking and harassment; the order was dropped in November 2020 after the two reached a private agreement, and Underwood said in a statement that he did not believe she had done anything wrong in filing it.⁹

In April 2021, Underwood came out as gay in a Good Morning America interview with Robin Roberts, becoming the first star of The Bachelor to do so.⁵^•⁹ During that interview he apologized to Randolph, saying he had "messed up" and "made a lot of bad choices."⁹ News that he was filming a Netflix reality series about his new life coincided with the announcement; according to The Hollywood Reporter, he was already weeks into production at that point, and the timing prompted criticism that he was using his coming-out story to rehabilitate his image after the allegations.¹⁰^•⁹

Reception

Critical response was mixed to negative. On Rotten Tomatoes the season holds a 57% Tomatometer from 7 reviews and a 75% audience score from fewer than 50 ratings; Metacritic assigned a Metascore of 40 based on 4 critic reviews, with a user score of 3.2 out of 10.²^•³

Reviewers split over the show's purpose and execution. Brian Lowry of CNN wrote that Underwood's story could not be fully told in one morning-show interview, but that stretching it into six episodes felt like a stretch, and that the peripherally featured people often had more interesting, better-articulated stories than the protagonist.¹⁶ Daniel D'Addario of Variety called it "a distasteful extension of a brand that doesn't mean much to begin with," and Laura Bradley of The Daily Beast wrote that the series hewed too closely to its subject to establish critical insight and read as part of a publicity campaign to move past the Randolph allegations.³ Joel Keller of Decider, by contrast, called it a worthwhile watch despite production sloppiness and repetitiveness, and Randy Myers of the San Jose Mercury News wrote that if it helped even one LGBTQ person feel less alone, it had done its job.¹⁶ Michael Cuby of them. called the docuseries pointless beyond absolving Underwood of the stalking allegations.¹⁶

A recurring criticism concerned the format itself. Common Sense Media noted that watching Underwood come out to his closest family members on camera added a spectacle-like quality, while still calling the series overall positive and empowering.¹⁵ An Esquire review argued the series was less about coming out than about manufacturing drama from a relatively tame story, and questioned whether it offered genuine visibility for the LGBTQ community.¹²

Aftermath

The series ran as a single season; Netflix lists it as ended after six episodes.⁶ Underwood said in 2022 that filming a second season would not be healthy.¹⁷ The show remains available on Netflix, including the ad-supported tier.¹⁸ Kenworthy later said that, from talking with Underwood, he knew the series had helped many people in their own coming-out journeys.¹⁹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Celebrity, family, lifestyle, and court reality series › Lifestyle, dating, and docusoaps › Celebrity and family docusoaps › Premiered 2019 to 2026

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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