It took 63 iterations of The Bachelor — including The Bachelorette, Bachelor Pad, Bachelor in Paradise and a few less fruitful spinoffs (just for The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart) — 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 (most of whom were probably ugly-crying).
But the happily ever after collapsed and skepticism came hurtling back when the couple filed for divorce just three months later. Enter (or should we say re-enter) Joan Vassos, who had quit Turner’s season after just three episodes to be with her postpartum daughter. In the exit limo, the gregarious grandmother and school administrator from Rockville, Maryland, movingly declared that the experience had helped her feel less “invisible” after the loss of her husband of 32 years, John.
“I actually said it kind of offhandedly,” Vassos, 61, recalls to Us exclusively. “I had been feeling for a really long time that as you get to be this age, people just don’t notice you as much. You could walk into a restaurant and be standing near a host stand waiting for your turn, and they will look at all of the younger people around you and speak to them before you. You have to be bold and make yourself seen.”
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.”
During the final weeks of this heartfelt season (ABC, Wednesdays, 8 p.m), she admits she felt “unsure” at times: “I went through some really, really, really tough emotional times that made me think ‘I’m not sure if I can do this.’” While Vassos can’t tell Us how the journey ends, she allows that her current state of mind is “healed,” “confident” and “hopeful.” Of her second shot at The One, she tells Us, “I found a lot of love.” And she did it her way. Read on for the Golden Bachelorette’s rules:
Remember that in the
end, this is about you —
not your children.
With The Golden Bachelor, the mom of four — Nick, 34; Erica, 33; Allison, 30; and Luke, 28 — and grandmother of three was ready to be a little “selfish” and prioritize dating for the first time since John died of pancreatic cancer in 2021. “I didn’t want to make it a family discussion because, in the long run, it was my decision,” she says, explaining that her offspring were split about her going on reality TV. Like most of America, the whole family “bought in” after seeing the show. “People weren’t laughing at the old people dating on TV,” Vassos remarks. Nonetheless, the kids didn’t want too much smooching or fantasy suites.
Be open. You can learn how to fall in love again.
Vassos credits Turner for his vulnerability. “It’s scary to do on national TV. You really expose yourself,” she says. “We trusted him, and it worked out until the last, like, nine-tenths of it. One-tenth of it didn’t work, but he really did find love.”
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.”
Date the way you want
to date.
For Vassos, the usual heart-in-your-throat Bachelor dates (let’s climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge!) 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. So anything too adventurous was out (“I absolutely was not going to do a bungee jump”), but she was ready for one classic Bachelor experience: a helicopter ride.
“I wanted to do the winery helicopter date. I’ve never been in a helicopter, [and] if you don’t ask, you don’t get,” Vassos says. Meanwhile, she brainstormed the idea for the totally awesome senior prom that aired September 25, and she requested a cooking date (the October 9 lemon baked ziti–fest with Guy Gansert). The reasoning behind it: Working together to prepare a meal is “a really good way to get to know a person.”
Stick with it.
Very few people will come up against the thorny situations that accompany the role of Golden Bachelorette: “Rose ceremonies are really hard,” Vassos asserts, “and I wanted to quit every week because I felt really terrible about hurting people’s feelings.” But back when she was first considering going on The Golden Bachelor, she had big-picture fears that are all-too-relatable for later-in-life relationship seekers. “You think as you get older, you get tougher. I didn’t feel that way. I felt scared,” she explains. “[I asked myself], ‘Is the risk worth the reward?’ The risk is heartbreak, but the reward is love. I decided that the risk is worth it.”
Need help? Ask for it.
During the process, with more than three decades’ worth of happy husband-and-wife memories crowding her head, Vassos began to feel like she was “cheating” on her late spouse. “I’d never had that feeling before,” she tells Us. “People kept saying, ‘Are you 100 percent ready for this journey?’ And I kept saying yes. Then, as I started developing feelings for some of the men, all of a sudden I had this, like, ‘Oh, my God, what am I doing? This doesn’t feel right.’”
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. You don’t have to let go of John to hold on to this other person.’ [So John] could still be part of my life [even if I had] somebody else.”
Give yourself permission to make comparisons.
Finding another John has never been Vassos’ goal. “He was irreplaceable, and I knew that,” she says. But being the Golden Bachelorette’s “type” definitely gives an edge to some of her suitors — the outgoing ones, for example. “I like a man who’s gregarious, who walks into a room and people automatically gravitate to him,” she says. “John was very much that person.”
Her late husband was also a fixer and Vassos acknowledges it was “weirdly comforting” to find the same quality in Chock Chapple. In fact, learning Chapple had dropped everything to find the best medical care for his late fiancée after she got sick was a turning point. “I’ve had this feeling that I don’t feel as safe as I used to when John was alive,” she tells Us. “I thought, ‘[Chock’s] a person who would make you feel safe again.’”
Set your boundaries.
If you built a drinking game out of PDAs this season, you’re probably still thirsty: Vassos guesses she kissed five or six of the men. (Wait, what?) She confesses, “I don’t love public displays of affection. That’s great you’re doing it, but no one really wants to see it. I was very conscious of that.”
That attitude doesn’t jibe with the steamy hot-tub makeouts and sexcapades (in a windmill? four times?) that franchise fans have come to expect. Which brings Us to the fantasy suites. “I’m not a person who can have a physical relationship with more than one person,” she says, so her overnight dates focus on “emotional intimacy” rather than physical. “I wanted it to be agreed that we would talk and have the conversations we need to have off-camera. We didn’t spend the night together. There was no bed in the room.”
According to Vassos, the men respected her decision. “You gotta think, the person you’re potentially ending up with probably does not want to think of you, last week, having slept with the guy he hangs out with,” she says. “It’s just weird.”
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 (often with more than one person) 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.”
Save those three little words for the right moment — and the right person.
It’s been eight years since season 20’s Ben Higgins rewrote Bachelor history by saying “I love you” to both of his finalists — a colossally bad decision. “People throw the word ‘love’ around a lot on this show, especially the younger people. I think they feel it quicker,” Vassos reflects. “I was careful not to do that. It backfires a lot.”
So she made a decision. Vassos continues: “I thought, ‘Even if I feel it, I’m not gonna say it because things change. I still have a little bit of time that I need to use to make sure there aren’t any red flags I haven’t seen.’”
Despite the awkwardness, the Golden Bachelorette stuck to her commitment. “I needed to get to the end of the journey to make sure I’ve made the right decision.”
Define your end goal.
Vassos set her intentions early: She was committed to staying in Maryland to care for her mother and mother-in-law and be close to her children and grandchildren. If that meant a long-distance relationship, so be it. “I don’t consider it a negative thing,” she says. “It could be really fun.”
Here’s how that would work: “When I have something great going on, my person could come be with me, and vice versa. We’ll spend two or three weeks with each other every month,” she explains. “I know this sounds aspirational, [but] you can make it work. The logistics shouldn’t be what stops you from being together.”
And this one must have been a gut punch to longtime franchise jeweler Neil Lane: Leaving with a diamond on her finger was not a must for Vassos. “I know everyone wants to see this big, epic happy ending, but I had to do what was right for me,” she says. “This was not about making a TV show for me — it was about finding love.”
