Joan Vassos has been named the first leading lady of “The Golden Bachelorette,” which premieres on ABC this fall, reports Variety.
Vassos, who is 61, was a contestant on the first season of “The Golden Bachelor.” After making a promising connection with the Bachelor, Gerry Turner, Vassos chose to leave the show prematurely to take care of her daughter, who was suffering from a medical emergency.
Vassos is a mother of four and a grandmother of two. She lost her husband of 32 years to pancreatic cancer and is ready to date a “family man with whom to blend her life,” per ABC. She works as a private school administrator and likes to cook, spend time with her dog and listen to Elton John.
The men who will compete for Vassos’ heart have not been revealed, but casting is in process, according to a press release shared with the Deseret News.
After her short run on “The Golden Bachelor” Joan thanked Bachelor Nation for trusting contestants “to tell the story of being in this phase of our lives and looking for love,” she wrote on Instagram.
“It isn’t glamorous or always fun, in fact it can be the opposite, but being able to share our journeys and how we navigate this process was an honor. Keep the hope, find your tribe to make the journey fun & don’t accept being invisible anymore!” she wrote.
Some fans feared the spinoff series, “The Golden Bachelorette” would fail to take off following the sudden divorce of the first golden couple: Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist. The couple, who met on the ABC series, got married in a televised special in January and announced their divorce three months later.
In an exclusive interview with CNN, Vassos said she was “surprised” by the divorce announcement but had “believed they were the perfect couple.”
“I applaud that they jumped into this process with both feet and they were ready to find love. And they knew what true love was, they both had it in their previous lives and so I applaud them for doing that. And I also applaud them that when they discovered it wasn’t perfect that they called it quits, and it’s not the end of the world. We have to let them live their journey and follow their hearts.”