Joan Vassos steps into the spotlight for the first season of “The Golden Bachelorette” with renewed self-confidence and a support network of people who will help her find love again.
The series, a spin-off of the hugely successful ABC show “The Golden Bachelor,” is about people in their golden years looking for their next great love.
Joan, who competed for Gerry Turner’s heart on “The Golden Bachelor,” returns to the reality TV franchise as the first Golden Bachelorette.
The widow and mother of four previously won over Bachelor Nation – and Gerry – on “The Golden Bachelor.” But after having her first and only one-on-one date in week three, she left the show to be with her daughter, who postpartum depression back home.
Returning to the show for the Women Tell All special, Joan said she “felt bad” about cutting ties with Gerry, but thanked him for helping her not to feel invisible at her age.
“Gerry helped me feel visible because he looked at me, he cared about what I said and he wanted to get to know me,” she said.
And as it turned out, Gerry became a helpful confidant on her journey to “The Golden Bachelorette.”
Joan got relationship advice from Gerry before filming “The Golden Bachelorette”
Joan and Gerry at “The Golden Bachelor”. John Fleenor/Disney
When it came time to prepare for her season of The Golden Bachelorette, Joan said she spoke to about four people, including Gerry.
“Probably the best advice I got from Gerry,” Joan told Business Insider before the series premiere on Wednesday night. “He was on last and had a more similar journey to me in terms of age.”
“He said not to get involved too soon,” she recalled. “There are a lot of people there and everyone deserves an equal chance. You never know what your initial feelings for someone will turn into.”
Gerry also advised Joan to “explore the story with each person and go out with them as if they were the only ones there.”
Given the show’s accelerated format, Gerry also told Joan, “Don’t waste your time.”
“It’s a very, very fast journey. Make sure every conversation is important and you learn something about the person because you’re going to need all that knowledge to make the decisions at the end,” Joan said he told her.
Joan turned to the show’s psychiatrist to deal with her guilt when she tried dating again
Joan at the series premiere of “The Golden Bachelorette”. Gilles Mingasson/Disney
Although Joan felt ready to find love again after the death of her husband John in 2021, it was not until her appearance on “The Golden Bachelorette” that she realized she had unresolved grief over her late husband.
“Emotionally, I feel like I learned a lot from my husband’s death that I didn’t know and hadn’t processed,” Joan said.
Joan said she dated a few times after John died, but didn’t have any serious relationships until she met Gerry on The Golden Bachelor. To her surprise, she met even more contestants on The Golden Bachelorette.
“As I was taking this journey, making some connections and imagining a life with someone, I suddenly felt really guilty and felt like I couldn’t let go of the memory of John,” Joan said, adding that he will always be a part of her.
She said she told the contestants this on the first night and turned to The Bachelor’s psychiatrist for advice on how to deal with her feelings of guilt.
“I was given a great analogy. They said, ‘You have two balloons in your hands: this is John in this balloon, and this is this other person in that balloon, and you don’t have to let go of John to have that person too,'” she said. “So I could still have John in my heart and in my memory and in my mind, and there’s still room for someone else.”
Joan described her season as emotional, both for her and her men.
“There wasn’t a single man who left this season and said he didn’t learn something about himself and come out of it a different person,” she said.
New episodes of The Golden Bachelorette premiere Wednesdays on ABC and stream the next day on Hulu.
