Lance Bass Says Former ‘Bachelor’ Colton Underwood Is ‘Monetizing’ His Coming Out

Actor-singer Lance Bass claims that former Bachelor star Colton Underwood may face backlash from the gay community for “monetizing the experience” of coming out as gay.

“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.”

Bass — who rose to fame as a singer for the boy band NSYNC and came out as gay in 2006 — made his comments in a Thursday interview on The Ben & Ashley I. Almost Famous Podcast.

“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,” Bass added.

Underwood came out as gay to host Robin Roberts on Wednesday’s episode of Good Morning America. The former Bachelor star and former football player is now planning a Netflix reality show about his life as a gay man, according to a report by Deadline.

“They don’t know what the issues are because they’ve been so separated from that on purpose,” Bass continued. “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,” he added. “But I don’t think Colton is trying to lead that charge of trying to be the spokesperson for the LGBTQ community.”

Bass added that he could relate to Underwood’s situation because, “90 percent of my fans were women, and they all thought I was straight.”

“I made my money off women and singing about love and using that market,” he said. “So me coming out, it was scary — because now everyone is gonna see me as a liar.”

In 2015, Bass said that he came out as gay in 2006 because “bully bloggers” — like Perez Hilton — gave him a 24-hour ultimatum to come out or they would expose him.

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