Joan Vassos doesn’t want her Bachelorette season to be a repeat of Gerry Turner’s season of The Golden Bachelor. She wasn’t expecting an engagement at the end of her season. Keep reading to find out the goal she set instead.
Joan Vassos Talks Dating Apps
Joan Vassos was happily married to her husband, John, for over three decades until his death in 2021. She hoped to find love with Gerry Turner on The Golden Bachelor but left the show early due to a family emergency.
She got a second chance when she was cast as the Golden Bachelorette. Joan opened up to PEOPLE magazine about her attempts at online dating after leaving Gerry Turner’s season.
“I tried a dating app. I was always hoping a friend would set me up with somebody, and none of those things really seemed to work. I wanted to date, but it seemed like such an effort. I didn’t really know how to do it.”
So, when she got the offer to be the first Golden Bachelorette, she jumped at the chance.
Golden Bachelorette Star Says Engagement Wasn’t Her Goal
Joan Vassos wasn’t looking for an engagement when she agreed to be the first Golden Bachelorette. She wasn’t even necessarily looking for someone to pack up and move to where she lives in Maryland. The private school administrator made it clear to Gerry Turner on The Golden Bachelor and her Golden Bachelorette suitors that she would not be leaving her family behind to move in with her final rose winner.
“My kids and my grandkids all live really close to me and not being close to them all the time would not work for me. They’re the most important people in my life,” Joan explained.
She added, “I felt that anybody that I would be a good match for, they would have the same family values as I have and would not want to leave their family.”
She also spilled that getting engaged to one of her twenty-four suitors was never her end goal.
“My goal was to leave in a committed relationship. I wanted to have somebody I saw a future with and that we wanted to see how it works in the real world outside of the Bachelor bubble.”
How She’ll Navigate A Long-Distance Relationship
Joan Vassos figured going into the Golden Bachelorette that her final golden rose winner would live in another state. “My thought was that, depending on your working status, you could go and spend two weeks at their house and two weeks at your house,” she said about her expectation for navigating a long-distance relationship.
“You figure it out for a while until you figure out a permanent arrangement, and that could be, feasibly, years.”
Bachelor Nation fans have yet to see Joan Vassos’ season of The Golden Bachelorette. The season premiere is on Wednesday, September 18.
But she assures fans that she is happy with the outcome. “The journey was wonderful for me, and I ended up being exactly where I think I should be.”
What do you think of Joan Vassos going into the dating show without wanting to get engaged? Is it a good move, given how few relationships last in the franchise?
Jennifer Havener grew up in a small town in Upstate New York. She earned her B.A in Writing & Literature from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. She always knew watching reality TV shows and soap operas, particularly ‘Days of Our Lives’, would come in handy someday. When she’s not writing, she’s playing with her dogs, Lola and Ruger