NSYNC alum Lance Bass has said that
Colton Underwood will face backlash from the gay community over how
he came out.
Underwood, a former bachelor on ABC's
The Bachelor, announced in a Good Morning America
interview last week that he's gay.
(Related: Bachelor
star Colton Underwood comes out gay.)
On the same day, Variety broke
the news that Underwood would star in a Netflix series about “living
his life publicly as a gay man.”
(Related: Gus
Kenworthy to be Colton Underwood's “gay guide” in upcoming
Netflix series.)
During an appearance on The Ben &
Ashley I. Almost Famous podcast, Bass said that Underwood's
“monetizing” of his coming out would not sit well with some in
the gay community.
“This gay community is very diverse,
but we can also be very fickle,” Bass
said. “He’s definitely gonna get a lot of backlash from the
community at first. Not the majority, but there is a small percentage
of the community that’s just gonna not like the fact that he came
out this way, that he’s monetizing the experience. They don’t
think he deserves this attention and one of those reasons is, and
this is what I experienced when I came out… when you first come
out, most people have no clue about the LGBT community.”
“They don’t know what the issues
are because they’ve been so separated from that on purpose. So when
someone comes out as a public figure, so many people immediately go,
'It’s too late.' They don’t like to support it because they don’t
feel like you know what you’re talking about yet. But I don’t
think Colton is trying to lead that charge of trying to be the
spokesperson for the LGBTQ community,” he said.
Bass added that he could relate to
Underwood's situation, saying that his fans felt betrayed after he
came out.
“Ninety percent of my fans were
women, and they all thought I was straight,” Bass said. “I made
my money off women and singing about love and using that market. So
me coming out, it was scary...cause now everyone is gonna see me as a
liar.”
Bass, who came out in 2006, is married
to Michael Turchin.
(Related: Lance
Bass behind opening of “biggest gay nightclub” in United States.)