The Golden Bachelorette star Joan Vassos has shared more about what happened behind closed doors during her Fantasy Suite dates.
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"You can't have stupid conversations... You need to have important conversations," Joan told Jason Tartick on a recent episode of his "Trading Secrets" podcast.
"Every conversation has to be important because you don't have many opportunities. So, you have to say things, like, 'You don't have to come live with me, and I don't have to come live with you either.'"
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Joan explained how she discussed finances off-camera during her overnight The Golden Bachelorette dates because she wants to end up with a man who is financially stable.
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"My husband and I worked really, really hard to create a really nice life, and we did," Joan said of John Vassos, who passed away in 2021 from pancreatic cancer.
"It required a lot of work and a lot of hours and a lot of time away from the family. John spent a lot of time -- many, many hours at work -- and we ended up being really financially secure."
Joan therefore admitted, "I wanted somebody who is in the same place as me."
"Let's face it: doing cool things in life often isn't free. It often costs money, and so I wanted a partner that had the same resources I have," Joan said.
"So, you know, those conversations -- I could either just kind of tell, based on their professions and things like that, and also, when you get behind closed doors and you get to the Fantasy Suites, you do talk about that. Those are important conversations."
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Joan admitted talking about money, credit and resources "sounds so not lovey," but this is "real life" and she treated her experience on The Golden Bachelorette that way.
"You talk about love and you talk about feelings and about all those things, but you also need to talk practical!" Joan said.
"And that was a big conversation I did have with people."
Joan recently revealed on The View that she approached Fantasy Suites in a completely different way than the franchise's leading men and women before her.
"I had the feeling, for me, I would never have a physical relationship with more than one person," Joan shared.
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"That's just not something I would do," added the 61-year-old private school administrator from Maryland.
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Joan therefore decided to switch up the usual The Bachelor and The Bachelorette process for the overnight dates.
"I said right away that I wanted to do Fantasy Suites because there is a lot of value in being able to talk to somebody without cameras," Joan recalled.
"So I said, 'I want to do Fantasy Suites, but I don't want to have a bed in there. I'm taking that off the table.'"
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Joan, who had been married for 32 years before John died, clarified how her Fantasy Suite dates were "about emotional intimacy" and not about having "a physical relationship" with anybody.
"So I took it off the table right away," Joan reiterated. "The men were all actually very respectful about that -- and kind of liked the idea."
Joan's bachelors probably didn't like the idea of her potentially sleeping with more than one man either!
"They thought it was a good idea," The Golden Bachelorette star confirmed.
Joan, however, clarified how she's "not judging anybody else" for how they had gone about Fantasy Suites on previous The Bachelor or The Bachelorette seasons.
The Golden Bachelor star Gerry Turner, for example, did have beds in the room for his Fantasy Suite dates with runner-up Leslie Fhima and winner Theresa Nist on the show last year.
"For me, that was the right way to do it," Joan concluded.
Joan decided to quit The Golden Bachelor during Week 3 of the process last year to tend to her postpartum daughter at home, and ABC later selected her to star on The Golden Bachelorette, which premiered September 18 on ABC.
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As Joan began to form real connections with some of her bachelors, she said she "had to face" her grief and stop viewing her love journey as a betrayal to John.
"It was in my face that I was feeling really guilty, honestly, about having feelings for somebody else. I almost felt like I was cheating on John, which is crazy because he's passed away," Joan confessed.
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Thankfully, The Golden Bachelorette's team of psychiatrists rushed to Joan's aid during the process.
"They said, 'You don't have to let go of John. Picture it like this: you have two balloons, one in each hand, and John is in a balloon in this hand, and your potential person that you're going to fall in love with in this hand. You don't have to let go of him from this hand to pick this one up and have a life with this one,'" Joan recalled.
Joan thought that was "such a good lesson" because it helped her talk more openly about her late husband with her The Golden Bachelorette suitors.
"You're trying to establish a relationship with somebody else, you don't want to talk about your deceased spouse, but keeping his memory alive didn't seem like I was being weird," Joan reasoned.
"I felt comfortable finally doing it. I talked about how funny he was and stuff like that, and I feel like the guys really appreciated that... You can't ignore it. It's going to be there. Talking about it and letting it out makes it more almost joyful."
Joan said she's learned to honor John's memory and pay tribute to him by sharing stories about him.
"Tell me stories," she noted. "It doesn't hurt me anymore; it makes me happy."
Now that Joan has finished filming the show and is hopefully in love, or maybe even engaged, she revealed that The Golden Bachelorette "cured" her of her immense grief.
"This journey made me open to love. And I figured it out partway through the journey that I really wasn't there when I came, but I got there," Joan concluded.
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