‘Bachelor in Paradise’ alum Tia Booth slams back on social media trolls calling her to keep quiet after her ex Colton Underwood came out as gay.
“@Coltonunderwood knows how I feel. Love who you want to love, ”Booth, 29, wrote on her Instagram story on Thursday, along with screenshots of messages she received from Bachelor Nation fans and asked her to speak.
“There is my statement. I’m my own PR team gtg bees, ”jokes the physiotherapist in her post, which is focused on TI and Rihanna’s song“ Live Your Life. ”
Underwood, 29, opened up about his sexual orientation for the first time during a candid ‘Good Morning America’ interview with Robin Roberts that aired on Wednesday.
‘I ran away from myself a long time ago. I have hated myself for a long time, ”he said. ‘And I’m gay. And I agreed on that earlier this year and processed it. And the next step in it all was to let people know. ”
The former footballer joined Bachelor Nation in 2018 when he participated in Becca Kufrin’s season of “The Bachelorette”. Before joining the program, he exchanged DMs with Booth, but their friendship did not take a romantic turn until they participated in season 5 of ‘Bachelor in Paradise’ later that year. Their relationship was ultimately short-lived.
“We were better at it then than friends, and we remained friends,” Underwood wrote in his 2020 memoir, “The First Time,” in which he calls Booth to this day one of his “most trusted confidants.”
After his turn on the Mexico series, ABC names the athlete Season 23 as ‘Bachelor’, making him the first virgin lead of the franchise. He eventually selected Cassie Randolph as his winner, but did not nominate her during the March 2019 finals.
Underwood and the speech pathologist (25) went out of the screen for more than a year before announcing their split in May 2020. She obtained a restraining order against him in September, alleging that he harassed her and tracked down her car. Randolph dropped the order in November because Underwood revealed that they had reached a “private agreement”.