The Golden Bachelorette‘s debut season has finally started. Joan Vassos, 61, welcomed Bachelor Nation fans into her dating world. After being widowed in 2021, she decided to find love again. Starting as a contestant on The Golden Bachelor, Joan had to self-eliminate to take care of her daughter. Now, she has a new shot at finding someone to spend the rest of her life with.
The 24 contestants were all impressed by the mom of four. Keith Gordon, a 62-year-old girl-dad, was the lucky man who received the First Impression Rose. But also, Kelsey Anderson made an appearance to support her dad Mark Anderson. The army veteran was previously dubbed “hot dad” on Joey Graziadei‘s season of The Bachelor, and he is now trying to whisk private school administrator Joan away.
Given how Jenn Tran‘s journey on The Bachelorette ended, fans have been wondering how Joan’s season will conclude. “I think that this journey is not for everybody,” she told TV Insider. “But I knew what I wanted in the end, and I knew what the journey looked like.” The Maryland resident was prepared for this opportunity after watching the franchise for “many, many years.” When asked if she’s satisfied with how her journey ends, she replied, “I ended up exactly where I should be.”
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To get to that point, she had to heal from her late husband’s death. After being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on Valentine’s Day in 2019, John Vassos died on January 18, 2021. Before he died, he shared an important message with Joan.
“About three days before he passed away, he called me over to the sofa. He was really unable to even stand up at that point, and he’s like, ‘Come sit with me for a minute,’” Joan explained. She revealed that he went on to tell her, “‘I really want to talk to you about something serious.’ He said, ‘You’ve been the best wife in the world and the best mother. We had a great life together, and I don’t want you to think that you have to mourn me forever. I want you to go find somebody, and I want you to live your life.’” He continued with “‘You’re young and you have energy, and you have a whole life ahead of you, and I want you to do that.’”
She was still in denial about his condition and wasn’t ready for the conversation. Joan remembers she said, “I’m not even talking about this. You’re not going to die. You’re going to live. And this is just crazy talk.”
Joan, who loved her husband of 32 years dearly, said that it was this conversation that helped her embrace this adventure. “That was the greatest gift he could have given to me because I don’t think I could have done that without his blessing, and he gave it to me,” Joan continued. She also noted her late husband was “a huge fan of reality TV,” including The Bachelor.
“So I always say that he’s up there looking down and going, ‘Look, that’s my wife down there. Look at her.’ I think that he’s been along on this journey with me, and he’s the reason I actually did it,” Joan told TV Insider.
The Golden Bachelorette, Season 1, Wednesdays, 8/7c, Hulu
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