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Lance Bass might have come out as part of the LGBTQ community almost 20 years ago, but he still can relate to modern coming out stories. The former NSYNC member had plenty to say about the former lead of The Bachelor, Colton Underwood, coming out as gay. Now, he’s pointing out something he has in common with the former football player.

Lance Bass in a pink suit and blue hair
Lance Bass | Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for MTV

Colton Underwood came out as gay on ‘Good Morning America’ in 2021

Underwood, more than a year after trying to find love with women on The Bachelor, came out as gay on Good Morning America. The lead dropped the announcement about his sexuality following his split from former girlfriend Cassie Randolph as well.

“This year’s been a lot for a lot of people,” Underwood stated. “It’s probably made a lot of people look at themselves in the mirror and figure out who they are and what they’ve been running from or what they’ve been putting off in their lives.”

“I hated myself for a long time,” he continued. “I’m gay and I came to terms with that earlier this year and have been processing it. The next step in all of this was letting people know. I’m still nervous, but yeah it’s been a journey for sure.”

Lance Bass related to Colton Underwood’s coming out story

Bass recently went on the On the List podcast with Brett Gursky on the Bleav Podcast Network and discussed the news story about Underwood coming out. He claimed that he related to the former bachelor.

“I relate to a lot of the things that he grew up with and the reasons why he stayed closeted so long and I wish him the best of luck,” Bass said. He claimed that people will call Underwood “just another privileged white guy that we get to see this coming out story, we’ve seen that so many times.”

Bass stated: “I think the community’s like, ‘Can we have more variety of the stories that we tell of our community of people coming out?’ And, you know, I understand that. But also you can’t ignore how big that coming out is.”

“He’s Bachelor franchise royalty,” Bass continued. “So I hope he does the right thing. You gotta sit back, you gotta listen to the community. It’s a brand new experience for him, so I know he probably doesn’t think he’s gonna be leading the charge and doing all the parades and everything. I think he’s gonna sit back and listen and learn about what’s going on and educate himself and hopefully will be a great part of the community in the future.”

Lance Bass commented on Colton Underwood coming out before

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Days after Underwood came out, Bass went on the The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast and discussed the news. He paralleled Underwood’s experience with his own, due to NSYNC.

“I can really relate to his experience because in a way, I was kind of like in a Bachelor Nation situation where 90 percent of my fans were women and they all thought I was straight,” he expressed. “And I made my money off of women, right, and singing about love and using that market.”

Bass commented: “So, me coming out, it was scary because I was like, ‘Oh crap, now everyone is going to see me as a liar, and why did I do this to them?’ You start telling yourself all these just the worst-case-possible scenarios of everything.”

Bass also related to Underwood for both of them growing up being involved in Christianity.

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