As ‘The Golden Bachelorette’ nears its big finish, Joan Vassos opens up to Us about finding romance later in life after a devastating loss — and doing it on her terms
It took 63 iterations of The Bachelor — including The Bachelorette, Bachelor Pad, Bachelor in Paradise and a few less fruitful spinoffs — to get the franchise to its Golden era. Skepticism greeted the idea of a senior edition, but in fall 2023, The Golden Bachelor was an immediate hit, delivering sincerity, authenticity and the rightest reasons ever. Four days into 2024, Gerry Turner, then 72, married final rose recipient Theresa Nist, 71, live on ABC in front of 5.22 million viewers .
For Vassos, age truly is just a number: She could be in her 40s. “I don’t feel like I’m an old person. I shouldn’t be taking a backseat to my kids,” she says. “I deserve to have a life, but I don’t think society thinks that right now. That’s something that needs to be addressed.” She notes you have to “relearn” how to fall in love. “After you’re in a relationship for so many years, you always assume you are loved and you love back. And when all of a sudden you don’t have it, you don’t know you can ever get it back or how to do it again.”For Vassos, the usual heart-in-your-throat Bachelor dates weren’t going to help her acquire the info she needed to pinpoint her final fella. Her 24 guys had a lot of life experience — they were steady.
Vassos wrestled with letting go of John — until she learned she didn’t have to. While reality TV is often criticized for its ham-fisted handling of mental health issues, Vassos had a different experience. “I sought out the help of the psychiatrist we have on set. I said, ‘I don’t know if I can keep doing this. I don’t know if I can get past this feeling that I have,’” she admits. “They said, ‘Imagine you have two balloons in your hand. One is John, and one is this other person.
While it’s hard to argue with that logic, Vassos is the exception and not the rule when it comes to Bachelors and Bachelorettes getting intimate on the show. “Everybody needs to do it their way. I’m not judging,” she says. “The physical part is important at every age, but I think it’s more important when people are younger. Each of us needs to engineer the journey so it works best for us.
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