2022 Rewind: Colton Underwood Opens Up on NFL Locker Room Culture

EDGE is looking back at 2022 and we're resharing some of our favorite stories of the year.

Former NFL player and "Bachelor" star Colton Underwood opened up about the pain he felt when teammates used homophobic language in the locker room. "The locker room, in my eyes, was one of the most homophobic and homoerotic places that I've ever been," the out media personality said in an interview with NPR.

"It was so confusing when I was closeted because at certain points people can be making jokes about, you know, somebody's naked appearance, and, like, be leaning into it and having fun and making it, like, loose and gay," he continued. "And then all of a sudden if you take it one step too far, you look a little too long, it turns into, you know, being called, you know, the f-word and it escalates really quickly to where you're getting called out and you have to, like, defend yourself."

Underwood, who recently became engaged to his boyfriend Jordan C. Brown, explained "how he kept photos of women's breasts so he could pretend to his teammates that women had been sexting him," he told NPR.

"I truly – I'm, like, not even proud to say this – but I had a folder in my photos of, like, random girls' boobs just so that I had some proof of like, if that ever happened to me, it's like, 'Oh, look what I just got sent.' Just, like, fit into that alpha hyper-masculine culture because I never wanted to have to defend myself past that," he recalled.

The Today Show recalled that "Underwood publicly came out in April 2021 and later detailed the emotional journey to accepting his sexuality in the Netflix reality series 'Coming Out Colton.' "

"I thought I was going to die with this secret," he revealed at one point during the six-part series.

Underwood also posted some thirst-traps this week, perhaps hoping some fans will post them in their lockers to show their homoerotic pride.