The Golden Bachelor runner-up Leslie Fhima has addressed recent rumors she's dating Joan Vassos' The Golden Bachelorette ex Jordan Heller.
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Leslie, who had finished as the runner-up on Gerry Turner's The Golden Bachelor season last year, was spotted with Jordan at a Los Angeles Football Club game in October where they posed for photos together in matching LAFC jerseys with their last names on the back.
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Speculation therefore sparked that something romantic is brewing between Leslie and Jordan, whom Joan had ousted from The Golden Bachelorette in fourth place following hometown dates.
"We have been texting a little bit," Leslie, 65, teased during the November 1 episode of "The Ben & Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast," which is co-hosted by The Bachelor alums Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti.
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When asked how she and Jordan exchanged phone numbers, Leslie quipped, "Just because we're older doesn't mean we're stupid."
But in attempt to set the record straight, Leslie said, "No, I'm not dating Jordan."
Leslie confirmed that she had met Jordan, 61, but she wouldn't consider their outing to be a date.
Instead, Leslie confirmed she had more of a "meet and greet" with the sales executive from Chicago, IL.
"I don't know what you'd call it, but Jordan had a suite at the soccer game in L.A.," Leslie explained.
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"His childhood friend is, like, the president of the club and he had a suite -- and he invited me."
Leslie said she was already in Los Angeles at the time to attend a taping of Dancing with the Stars to support The Bachelor star Joey Graziadei and The Bachelorette star Jenn Tran.
Leslie therefore decided to check out the soccer game and bring her friend Wendy along. Leslie said there were other men from The Golden Bachelorette socializing in the suite as well.
"It was awesome," Leslie gushed of the gathering, adding how it was "weird timing" that they were all in Los Angeles at the same time.
There is no doubt that Leslie is attracted to Jordan and he's her type, according to the brunette beauty.
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"I like Jordan. When I was watching the show I liked him the best, for me," Leslie admitted.
"Let's say for me, I thought all the guys were great. If it was me, if I was the Golden Bachelorette and he was on that show, you know, you know how you think. But what's good for me isn't going to be right for Joan or whoever else."
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Leslie shared how she and Jordan "have a lot in common" and he has a great sense of humor.
"He's funny. I love funny. He lives in Chicago, I live in Minneapolis. He has a dog, and I have a dog. Stuff like that is important, and we're both Jewish," Leslie explained.
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"At the end of the day, that's important to me as well. I mean, it's not a hard stop, like, I have to have someone Jewish, but if you meet someone and they are [of the same] faith, that's just icing on the cake."
Since Leslie and Jordan had a great time at the soccer game, they've apparently texted and have remained in touch "a little bit" since then.
"For me, I don't know where it would go, if it's going to go," Leslie noted.
"I just think he's a great guy and to be friends with him first is fine with me. I don't need to jump into anything, and he's got a whole year of this ride. I want him to enjoy it and I want him to experience it, and I don't want to get in the way of that."
But Leslie pointed out how she'll be "there as a friend" for Jordan "once he goes through all his DMs from other women."
"I don't know. We'll see," Leslie concluded.
On The Golden Bachelor, Leslie claimed Gerry had totally convinced her in the Fantasy Suite that she was The One for him and they were going to spend the rest of their lives together.
And so when Gerry eliminated Leslie in her hotel room in Costa Rica, she bawled her eyes out and lashed out at Gerry for having misled, lied to, and broken her heart.
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During the live The Golden Bachelor: After the Final Rose special that aired in late November 2023, Leslie wanted to know why Gerry had ultimately picked Theresa Nist over her, but Gerry could only say that Theresa was "right" for him and a better fit for his life.
Leslie therefore questioned Gerry's integrity and declined to accept his apology.
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But Leslie insisted on the "Bachelor Happy Hour" podcast at the time that she had no regrets from her experience on the show -- except for maybe one.
"The only thing I would've like to... or I should have said is, 'I THOUGHT you were a man of integrity,' instead of, 'You are a man of integrity,'" Leslie shared.
She continued, "Because at the end of the day, he didn't really have the integrity that I thought he had."
When asked if she still had respect for Gerry post-split, Leslie replied, "I mean, Gerry did what he did, it's his journey. Do I respect him? I just wish he would've done it different."
Leslie admitted of their brutal breakup, "I don't respect what he did... I feel like he just used, 'I love you,' too much."
Leslie confessed that she didn't get the closure she needed from Gerry on After the Final Rose but she was able to close that chapter and look forward to better times.
Gerry and Theresa, meanwhile, got engaged on The Golden Bachelor finale and wed on January 4 in a live televised special on ABC. (Leslie even attended the wedding).
Gerry and Theresa announced their decision to get a divorce in April, and they finalized the paperwork in June. That same month, Gerry boasted to TMZ about how women were flooding his Instagram DMs.
The pair had said that long distance was the reason for their split because neither of them wanted to move away from their loved ones, but Theresa just revealed during a recent episode of the "Almost Famous" podcast that there was definitely more behind their breakup.
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