Colton Underwood speaks out after his exchange with actor Michael Rapaport on the latest “Traitors.”
The fifth episode of this season was released on Thursday on Paramount. Underwood, who came out as gay years ago, is also on the show, and Rapaport is drawing criticism for comments he made about him.
“Traitors” is a game of deception, and Underwood accused Rapaport of being a traitor. The actor replied, “No one in this room would be better at keeping a secret than you.” »
“There it is,” Underwood replied. “You think it was fun for 29 years of my life?”
“Oh no, no, no, no, no, that has nothing to do with it,” Rapaport responded. “I think you came into this game loving the idea of being a traitor.”
Underwood spoke about the incident in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“The coming out process takes a long time, and I’m still in the process of coming out, so there are always little things here and there that retrigger old emotions. I’m still working on how to process them, and I think you definitely see that coming up and hitting me.”
The outlet asked Underwood if he thought Rapaport was really attacking his sexuality with the comment.
“In the short time I knew Michael, he was pretty self-aware,” Underwood said. “He talks fast, he talks slickly, and he said this in one of his interviews, his mouth gets him in trouble. I grew up around those kinds of people. It’s very much like a locker room-style environment, and I think the one-liners and the little digs and the things toward the gay community are thrown around a lot in those kinds of environments. I’m at a point in my life where I’m definitely not sitting in that emotion. I don’t feel like a victim at all. I know he’s watching him probably just with a bit of regret over how he delivered it.
“I could just tell you how I took it, and I understood that it was not in the spirit of play and that it was more of a personal dig into my past, what I experienced and how I behaved,” he added. “I’ll be the first person to say that I’m definitely not perfect and I’ve definitely made a lot of mistakes. But at this point in my life, it was five or six years ago when I started the coming out process, and I’m in such a different place in my life with my family and professionally. A lot of therapy. The hardest part is just getting back into the headspace where I was at my lowest.”
Underwood said Rapaport apologized and told him he “didn’t mean it.”
“I don’t blame him, but I think it’s important for me, at this point in my life, to start standing up for myself,” he said. “I can only be a punching bag for a while. Even today, seeing the comments of some people (and) fans of the show towards me, I can only stay silent for a while.”
The Independent reported that other contestants on the show immediately replaced Underwood after Rapaport’s comment.
“You can’t blame someone for being forced to stay in a closet for most of their life,” said figure skater Johnny Weir, who appears on the show.
Rapaport claimed his comment had nothing to do with Underwood being in the closet at any point in his life.
“I’m not talking about closets!” Rapaport yelled at Weir.
“That’s how I took it, or at least we took it that way,” Weir responded.
“His behavior is that of a traitor,” Rapaport said, pointing to Underwood. “His behavior is secretive. It’s complicit. It’s chirpy. It’s compassionate. It’s cowardly.”
Two other contestants, Yam Yam Arocho and Maura Higgins, agreed that the comment was a “very low blow.”
“I don’t think that’s the case,” Rapaport responded. “It wasn’t planned.”
Unfortunately for the actor, people on social media didn’t believe it.
“That moment with Michael Rapaport in the final episode of Traitors is despicable,” wrote Spencer Althouse. “I love that Rob Rausch immediately clocked him for an error.”
“Traitors was a really fun show and left it up to Michael Rapaport to keep going and make things mean,” Sarah Alaina wrote on X. “Ugh.”
But others thought Rapaport wasn’t trying to be homophobic with his comment.
Underwood, 33, and her husband, Jordan C. Brown, last made headlines in 2024 when they welcomed a baby into the world. The couple first announced in May of that year that they were expecting a child, and Underwood shared a photo of him and Brown posing with their new son. Underwood also shared a video of him feeding his son and wrote: “Our sweet bishop.”
Underwood was an undrafted rookie free agent out of Illinois State in 2014. The 6-foot-3, 254-pound defensive end first signed with the Chargers that year and also spent time on the Philadelphia Eagles’ practice squad that season. He also spent time with the Raiders in 2015 and 2016.
After his time in the NFL, Underwood appeared on “The Bachelorette” for that show’s 14th season and then appeared on season 23 of “The Bachelor.”
Underwood came out as gay in a “Good Morning America” interview with Robin Roberts in 2021. He told “Variety” that he never planned to tell the world he was gay, but did so because he was being “blackmailed” by someone who claimed they took nude photos of him at a spa known for catering to a gay clientele.
Source | domain www.pennlive.com
