THE GOLDEN BACHELORETTE Joan Vassos talks dates, grief, and more | TV Insider

[Music] I'm going to have to get used to that because you don't want to be with somebody that you don't like to kiss so you have to like try it out I'm going to probably kiss a fair amount of guys on camera I'm sorry guys a fair amount yeah we weren't exp we were not expecting that answer yeah a little bit you know I think about I think about Gary being the first golden Bachelor I think he had a harder job than me but I also think back to Trista when she was like the first golden B first Bachelorette um and about like the hard job the two of them had so I'm not like the original I'm not the OG you know uh for like Trista kind of did that already for the women Gary did it for the golden so I I get to look at their the way they did it and so it makes it a little easier for me but it is a little scary being a first I have to say there's a lot of pressure and um like being an OG is like kind of Epic I feel like in my book I'm I'm a little nervous I hope I did it [Music] right I did um so he and I are good friends and so we still we do talk um and maybe a month before we started taping he and I had a really long conversation I mean it may have been two hours and we talked about lots of stuff and you know how do you remember everybody's game and you know like I asked him for advice he said um to be open and don't make a decision early on and make sure you give everybody a chance and don't leave anything on the table make sure that you um ask them the important questions there's you know not a lot of room for small talk and um I also talked to Trista and I talked to I talked to Jen Jen had just finished taping and I called her and I well we connected on Instagram we dm'd each other and she's like call me if you want to talk and I was like yeah I want to talk I need to talk to somebody so she like I I had conversations with a lot of people a lot of Bachelor um and bachelorettes that had already gone through this process to find out like what they did like give me advice tell me the things to do and not to do so um I was I you know I was the first but I had a lot of coaching so like you you know like I said there's not a lot of room for small talk so like you know what's important to you you know you know what do you do on a Saturday do you see your family or do you go golf with your friends or not that I'm judging that I mean certainly you should have time with your friends you know you kind of need to find out what their moral compass is and what they value and um like those are kind of big questions to ask somebody you hardly know but that's what you have to do yeah that's a really good question because you know it's a little nebulous right now um you know I was just kind of starting my golden years when John passed away we were in the process of making plans we were going to go you know on these great vacations and we were going to buy another home and you know be able to spend more time there you know my my youngest son was just graduating from college so we were just getting all the kids launched we're about to start those golden years and he passed away so I haven't like experienced the golden years really yet um with somebody but in my mind it's doing all those things it's you know be able to to be spontaneous and to take a trip but also having the person that you're comfortable like just sitting at home and watching like a Netflix series or um you know know cooking out and having a glass of wine and just sitting on your back deck you know it doesn't need to be you know I'm out of the the years of raising kids I don't have like all those obligations so it's really like having a best friend cuz you finally have time to be alone with somebody it's almost like like the beginning of your marriage when you're really young before you have kids like I'm now at the other end of that kids are raised and you know it's like dating again it's you know it's finding love it's almost almost like you know when you were in your 20s but I'm doing in my' 60s now so my red flag list is generally something that's hard to discover like in a mansion setting so like my red flag list is a lot of if you treat waiters and waitresses nice or you know just the people at the you know the acquaintances um and how you treat those people so that's what I got red flag for me so I didn't really experience that in um the house so it was more how they treated each other um that I noticed because they were innately going to be the best they could be around me but it's when like no one's looking how they're treating each other or so and that was really indicative so they um as you know you know they you'll be sitting with somebody having your one-on-one time and they would they'll come up and okay I'm sorry can I you know steal you for a minute and it was the way they would apologize and the way that they would treat each other after that and they were so nice to each other they would like someone would come up and say I'm so sorry can I steal her like it's kind of my turn and they would say oh my God course have a good time you know and hug each other they were so nice to each other so no red flags ever they were all so kind and so good and and talked about each other in such kind ways they would talk about each other when I was having individual time with them I was very excited when he well so I didn't know until he showed up um and that was a really fun um entrance and I was excited when he got out of the car I had hoped that he would be getting out of the car you know I loved seeing the way he was with his kids and that's like a really big important thing for me um how you are with your family and you know that he had lost his you know wife to cancer and um and how close he was with his kids and that's kind of really similar to my life so I you know aside from him being really cute and good-looking I just I I felt like we you know we had a lot of the same values when we started taping it had been almost 3 and half years since he passed away which really is in a long time and you know over those years you know I almost tried to push it kind of in the back you know you grieve really really hard in the beginning you can't help it you can't push the things back and then you get better at that um over the years and I had gotten pretty good at it by at three years that I like I don't have a lot of pictures of him around the house because it makes me sad still but I was um kind of confronted with these feelings a lot during this proc proect um this process because you know I did start forming feelings for other men and I had not done that up until that point and um I was kind of like you know I felt like I was um like I really had to confront things that I wasn't used to confronting you know about like guilt of um of dating another man like I almost felt like I was being unfaithful weirdly and um you know I had finally kind of gotten used to being alone and I was worried then all of a sudden I didn't want to rock the boat and like invite somebody else into my life maybe that you know I finally got to this comfortable place without John and that introducing somebody in my life was going to now make me uncomfortable again so yeah I had a lot of thoughts about John and I actually came out of this journey being able now really able to talk about John a lot like I talk about all the time which is maybe weird but um like I was encouraged to really confront things and and work through them in a really like short amount of time and it was really like very healing for me um so I kind of always said that um if I found the right person that I would be open to getting married again you know I'm not sure at this age you need to get married again I think that you know there a lot times aligned with having kids and you know creating a household we're in a little bit of a different place but I don't see there's any reason not to get married you I don't mean to sound like that is I don't know to be honest um until you figure out what your love looks like um it's hard to think about that honestly I had a love you know I was married for 32 years I never thought in my mind that I would be thinking about marrying somebody else I never thought I would be without John so you know that's a kind of a big deal to [Music] me the fact that Gary and Teresa didn't work out you know I did see them fall in love on the show they were in love and you know eventually they figured out that it wasn't right for them Unfortunately they got married first but I mean when they figured out it wasn't right for them they were ready to let it go and I think both of them still want to find love and the best thing for them to do at that point was to call it quits and you know live their lives I you know I feel like um maybe it disappointed a lot of people I was disappointed I love seeing their married I love that happy ending but I'm still good friends with both of them and I think they did the right thing well it was so fun they had we had incredible dates so but at first I'd like to like I would like to touch on the Mansion a little bit because I think that is maybe like a little bit of a mystery in everybody's mind like are we just going to have a bunch of older men that want to talk about Golf and sports and you know you know we're not really going to get to know them and that is completely not true they were so incredibly open and vulnerable and they loved each other they fell in love night one and um I think that they are all still talking right now and um they they have some really interesting stories about their lives so I think you guys are going to be treated to and even me cuz you know I don't see what happens in the Mansion this is only what I hear from the guys so um I think that we're going to have like be in for a real treat when this airs cuz we're going to really get to know these guys and their um their back stories and then as far as dates we had some great ones so for the first time ever in Bachelor history we got to go to Disneyland the happiest place on Earth and um that was an amazing date it just was iconic just how you think of Disney and um I also got to go to Las Vegas on a private jet and that was so much fun I mean every date had this epic element to it so they you know they don't do anything halfway way at Bachelor everything is huge and done in a major way so those were two of my fun fun dates we did also have a really cool date that benefited um a cancer organization bear it all for cancer and it was a chip and's stripping date so you're going to see some older gentlemen bearing it all for cancer and um I'm I don't want to give anything away they they they Beed it all they really put their heart into it a lot of the men on this show had lost Lov ones to cancer so everybody really embraced the opportunity to do something good instead of just being like salacious this like we all viewed this as you know we were benefiting something amazing so um everybody really put their heart into it wow that is so that's like such a huge question because it was such an Epic Journey I I'll remember the first day when the guys came in the limo and like how overwhelming it was and then how each week it became less overwhelming and more intimate and you can see you know you are confronted with making big decisions every week about who to give roses and you know you second guess yourself and then all of a sudden you're at the end of the season and you're exactly where you need to be and you feel like you did everything right and that's how I feel [Music]