The Golden Bachelorette is officially coming to ABC.
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ABC has announced the highly-anticipated spinoff of The Golden Bachelor will air on the network this fall following the success of Gerry Turner's The Golden Bachelor season.
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Additional details about The Golden Bachelorette -- including its star, cast of senior suitors, and exact premiere date -- will be announced in the coming months.
ABC announced The Golden Bachelorette's fall premiere as part of an announcement in which it also confirmed it has renewed The Bachelorette for a new season which will air on the network this summer.
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Gerry's televised quest to find love was a breakout hit for ABC when it aired last fall and delivered the largest multi-platform audience for The Bachelor franchise since Clare Crawley and Tayshia Adams' 2020 The Bachelorette season.
ABC executive Rob Mills last updated viewers on the potential The Golden Bachelorette spinoff in late November.
During the November 27 episode of the "Bachelor Party" podcast, Rob was asked to reveal the most important quality when selecting the franchise's first-ever Golden Bachelorette.
"I don't know. It's hard. Usually, the problem we have is that there's not enough candidates," Rob explained.
"But here, somebody had said something, I think a few weeks ago -- I think it was during The Women Tell All -- about how all 12 of these women should get their own seasons. And I don't disagree!"
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Rob pointed out how all the of the women would be great as the golden leading lady because they bring "very different stories" to the television screen.
"So it's really going to be difficult... [But] we haven't really [started]. I think right now, it's really important to get this season right, and so we haven't really dove deep into it," Rob said, adding how ABC hadn't begun casting for it yet.
Both Gerry and The Golden Bachelor host Jesse Palmer have also voiced how they're wholeheartedly in favor of ABC creating a Golden Bachelorette spinoff and are very excited about the idea of it.
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Bachelor Nation's Wells Adams and Joe Amabile revealed in December which ladies in particular from Gerry's The Golden Bachelor season they're rooting for to become the first The Golden Bachelorette star.
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Wells, Bachelor in Paradise's bartender who is happily married to actress Sarah Hyland, shared how his pick for The Golden Bachelorette is Joan Vassos, according to Us Weekly.
Joan quit The Golden Bachelor early in the season after a successful one-on-one date with Gerry, during which she had felt a genuine connection, to help her daughter, who had just given birth via c-section and was struggling with a serious case of postpartum depression.
"[With] Joan, I was like, 'She should be the Golden Bachelorette, like, I've got to know about how the daughter is doing. How's the grandchild doing? What happened with the labor?' I actually looked into it," Wells told Us.
Joe, for his part, told the magazine that he's hoping Gerry's runner-up bachelorette, Leslie Fhima, gets another shot at finding true love.
Joe's heart apparently goes out to Leslie because she claimed Gerry had convinced her in the Fantasy Suite that she was The One for him, only to brutally dump her on-camera ahead of the Final Rose Ceremony.
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"I think if they do a Golden Bachelorette, it should be Leslie. I really do. I really think Leslie was someone who is all in," Joe said.
"Unfortunately, Gerry did open up to her in the Fantasy Suites and made promises that he did not keep. To be Final 2 and to really think, like, you're The One and then not to be is really rough."
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Joe -- who previously interviewed Leslie on his "Bachelor Happy Hour" podcast with wife Serena Pitt -- added how he thinks Leslie is "so personable and sweet," adding, "[She is] just, like, a lovely person. I think she would make an excellent lead."
Joe also shared at the time how he thinks ABC will "pretty easily" be able to repeat The Golden Bachelor's success, and Wells agreed.
"I think it'll be very easily duplicated but no one's ever going to be Gerry," Wells noted.
Wells said he and The Bachelor franchise producers often talk about what makes a really good show.
"[It] is not drama; it's really stakes and it's hard for the stakes to be really, really high for a 25-year-old personal trainer who's got abs all over," Well explained.
"But the stakes for someone who's older, who's lived a little bit more life, who's had some tragedy and ups and downs all the sudden that story becomes really, really compelling."
"I think that's why everyone in America grabbed on," he elaborated, "because we know people who are widowers or divorcees and scared that their last love is long gone."
Wells therefore said casting from "a pool of people who have lived a lot of life and have amazing stories" will probably make for a "really successful" season of The Golden Bachelorette, as well as future seasons of The Golden Bachelor.
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"I don't want to say easy, like, [Gerry] was a diamond in rough. I don't know if we have another Gerry, but I think that they'll be a lot of really good compelling story lines," Wells said.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
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