It has solely been a month because the storybook ending of “The Golden Bachelor,” ABC’s buzzy spinoff of “The Bachelor,” that includes forged members 60 and up, obtained a divorce-announcement epilogue.
However ABC is giving the relationship franchise one other likelihood at love.
Joan Vassos would be the first “Golden Bachelorette” in a brand new season of the truth relationship present this fall. The announcement was made on Tuesday by Ryan Seacrest at ABC’s upfront, a showcase the place a broadcaster presents its lineup to advertisers.
Ms. Vassos, a 61-year-old faculty administrator from Rockland, Md., was a contestant on the inaugural season of “The Golden Bachelor” final yr. A mom of 4 and grandmother of two, Ms. Vassos earned the love of the sequence lead, Gerry Turner, after writing him a poem titled “I Simply Hope I Don’t Vomit on Your Footwear.”
Ms. Vassos and Mr. Turner additionally bonded over the grief every had skilled after the demise of a partner. She selected to depart the present throughout its third week as a result of her daughter was experiencing well being issues quickly after giving beginning.
In her temporary time on the present, Ms. Vassos was the contestant who maybe finest articulated ABC’s acknowledged intention for the spinoff: to place a long-overdue highlight on older People.
“My coronary heart perhaps obtained a bit mounted from Gerry,” Ms. Vassos stated as she left the Bachelor Mansion. “As you become older, you develop into extra invisible. Individuals don’t see you anymore. Such as you’re not as vital as whenever you’re younger.”
Ms. Vassos and the opposite 21 ladies on the “Golden Bachelor” dated Mr. Turner, 72, an affable widower from Indiana whose squeaky-clean romantic historical past was later known as into query by an article in The Hollywood Reporter. (He stated he had given the article solely “a cursory look.”)
After a season of flash mobs, wedding ceremony gown fittings and extra critical conversations about grief and loss, Mr. Turner proposed to Theresa Nist, a 70-year-old monetary providers skilled from New Jersey.
Mr. Turner and Ms. Nist married in January in a Southern California ceremony picturesque sufficient to be televised reside. (And it was.) Simply three months later, they introduced that they might divorce, throughout an look on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” citing their commitments to their households.
Regardless of the messy aftermath, the present’s first season drew robust rankings for the franchise. It additionally attracted a contemporary spherical of press and social media consideration to a sequence that some viewers felt had grown stale after greater than 20 years on air.
Followers of the present celebrated the “Golden Bachelorette” announcement on social media, though some expressed shock that Leslie Fhima, a runner-up on “The Golden Bachelor” and a fan favourite, had not been forged in Ms. Vassos’ place.
After the announcement, Ms. Vassos posted a promotional video for the upcoming season on Instagram. “The key is out!” she wrote, including that she was “honored” to be the primary feminine lead of the spinoff.
