“The Golden Bachelor” is returning for a second season.
The golden suitor? Mel Owens, the 66-year-old former NFL linebacker-turned-lawyer, ABC announced on Tuesday.
Owens, who is divorced from his “first love” and wife of 25 years, is “ready to rediscover a love rooted in the simple joys of companionship – sharing life’s everyday moments, making plans for the future, and growing stronger together as a couple," ABC shared in a press release.
“As the Golden Bachelor, he’s eager to meet someone who shares this vision and finally find that perfect teammate he’s been waiting for in his golden years.”
“The Bachelor” host Jesse Palmer met with the former Los Angeles Rams player on Tuesday and introduced him to Bachelor Nation.
Following the passing of his father and divorce from his wife, Owens put his energy toward raising his two sons, Palmer told Us Weekly. As his kids prepare to go to college, Owens is prepared to find a new companion.
“Mel is obviously super handsome. He’s very charming, he’s very intelligent, he’s very successful,” Palmer told Us Weekly.
“He’s just looking for companionship. It’s just really pure and just listening to him talk about it is really moving. So I think he’s going to be a great lead. I think he’s a great choice to be our next Golden Bachelor.”
Who is ‘Golden Bachelor’ Mel Owens?
Owens is a former linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams, and now a lawyer and father to two sons.
He was raised in Detroit in a “close-knit Midwestern family” and attended the University of Michigan, where he played football, per an ABC press release. After his graduation from the University of Michigan, Owens was selected in the 1981 NFL draft to play for the LA Rams.
Owens stayed with the LA Rams until 1989, when he retired from the NFL.
“I played with a lot of great players, I had a great time ... we built the NFL to where it is now. It was just before the TV contracts got big in the early 90s,” Owens told the South Florida Tribune in 2024 on his time in the NFL
Following his nine-season professional football career, Owens turned to law as a means to help others, “particularly those seeking justice for sports-related injuries,” per ABC.
“While life took an unexpected turn with the passing of his father and the end of his marriage, Owens channeled his energy into being the best father he could be, focusing on raising his sons and coaching their extracurricular sports teams.”
Now, Owens is prepared to find a woman to spend his golden years with.
When does ‘The Golden Bachelor’ Season 2 start?
The second season of “The Golden Bachelor,” starring Mel Owens, is expected to air in fall 2025. An official premiere date for the series will be “announced at a later date,” per ABC.
ABC’s ‘Golden’ spinoff success
The inaugural season of “The Golden Bachelor,” which premiered in 2023 with bachelor Gerry Turner, averaged 10.4 million viewers per episode during its first 35 days across platforms, per an ABC press release.
The debut of the series became ABC’s most-watched episode of an unscripted series ever on Hulu, as reported by Deadline.
Season 1 of “The Golden Bachelor,” ended in an engagement between Turner and Theresa Nist. They were married just over a month later in a televised ABC special on Jan. 4, 2024.
At the time, the couple expressed full commitment to making their marriage work, per Variety.
Three months later, Turner and Nist announced they planned to divorce, citing difficulties in finding a place to settle down together, as previously reported by the Deseret News.
“We have received so much love and support from so many people who watched ‘The Golden Bachelor,’ and I don’t think we can tell you how many people told us that it gave them so much hope,” Nist told "Good Morning America" at the time. “We want none of that to change, for anybody.”