When Joan Vassos was named The Golden Bachelorette lead, much of Bachelor Nation was excited to see her journey.
But we didn’t know much about her at that point because she self-eliminated from The Golden Bachelor after just a handful of episodes.
Now that we’ve spent more time with Joan, it’s pretty obvious that she isn’t over her late husband, John, who died just three years ago.
It’s too late for that, though, because Joan is on contract to film and, hopefully, to find love on the ABC senior spinoff.
What that means for us is that we get to hear about her late husband and how much she misses him in every single episode.
The men who are courting her hear about it, too, and while most of them have been very supportive, often dealing with their own grief, we have to wonder how successful a relationship could be for her now that she realizes that she’s really not ready to move on.
Joan Vassos admits she ‘thought’ she was ready for The Golden Bachelorette
With The Golden Bachelorette finale coming up this week, Joan has been speaking more openly about her journey.
One of the things that she has finally admitted is something many of us already knew — that she really wasn’t ready to move on after the death of her husband.
Last week, Joan spoke with Entertainment Weekly and was asked what she wished she had known before filming her season. Her answer was brutally honest.
“I’ve watched the show for lots of years, and I’ve watched the younger people do it, and it was a completely different experience for me. I thought, ‘Oh, I know what’s going on. I know how to do this,'” Joan explained.
She admitted, “The emotions that I felt were way different than what I thought they would be. I didn’t think it was going to be this emotional. I felt like I was super ready and this was just going to be learning about the guys and dating them.”
But she wasn’t ready, and it took jumping into the show to reveal that.
“I didn’t realize at all these emotions inside of me were going to bubble up. I think it was because I really came in thinking, ‘I’m really ready to do this.'”
She continued, “Then when I started having feelings for some of the men, I all of a sudden had this feeling, ‘I can’t do this. I still love John. How am I supposed to have feelings for other people? I can’t love two people.'”
“It took me a while to get through that. I don’t think anybody could have ever prepared me for that. But I think now that I know that, I need to prepare the next person.”
Joan knows how she wants to navigate a relationship after the show
Unlike Gerry Turner on The Golden Bachelor, Joan knows exactly how she wants a relationship to work after the show — should she find love.
She knows that, at her age, she doesn’t want to move away from her friends and family, and she doesn’t expect any man she would pick to want to move either.
Instead, she envisions a split household where the pair could spend a few weeks in her home and then travel to spend a few weeks in his.
It’s still unclear which man that may be or whether she’s still with her finale rose winner as the finale gets closer. She still has Chock Chapple and Guy Gansert to choose from after Pascal Ibgui self-eliminated in Tahiti.
This means that if things work out, Joan could spend a lot of time in Wichita, Kansas, or Reno, Nevada.
The Golden Bachelorette airs on Wednesdays at 8/7c on ABC.