Bachelor Nation's Wells Adams and Joe Amabile have revealed which ladies from Gerry Turner'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.
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Joan self-eliminated from The Golden Bachelor early in the season after a successful one-on-one date with Gerry, during which she had felt a genuine connection, due to a family emergency back home.
"[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 during a joint interview with Joe while they promoted a new partnership for a cocktail collection.
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Although Joan really wanted to stay on The Golden Bachelor and continue pursuing Gerry, she left on the show's October 12 episode because her daughter had given birth via c-section and was struggling with a serious case of postpartum depression. She therefore needed her beloved mother's help.
Joan told TheWrap in mid-November that she briefly considered returning to The Golden Bachelor because she had "unfinished business," however, her daughter's mental health didn't recover in time.
On The Golden Bachelor: The Women Tell All, Joan got emotional when watching her journey back on the show.
And the 60-year-old private school administrator from Rockland, MD, told host Jesse Palmer that she thought there was "a good chance" she and Gerry could've worked out had she stayed on the show.
"Gerry helped make me feel visible. He looked at me and he cared about what I was saying and he wanted to get to know me," Joan explained.
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"Society makes us feel like we've had out chance, we've had our children, and now it's time to support the next generation and kind of take a backseat. And Gerry opened my heart."
Joan also admitted that she briefly "held out hope" Gerry would come and find her once she returned home.
"I did think a couple times maybe I would come around the corner, coming home from work, and [Gerry] would be sitting on my front porch," Joan shared.
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Joan said she sometimes caught herself thinking about what could have been with Gerry.
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"I went from wanting to find somebody to craving it now. It was such a good feeling and I'm working hard to find it; I'm not giving up," Joan announced.
Joe, for his part, told Us 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, who soon turns 65-years-old, because she claimed Gerry had convinced her in the Fantasy Suite that she was The One for him.
When Gerry broke up with her and proposed marriage to winner Theresa Nist instead, Leslie was beyond crushed and devastated.
"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.
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"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."
Joe -- who interviewed Leslie on his "Bachelor Happy Hour" podcast with wife Serena Pitt -- added how he thinks Leslie is "so personable and sweet."
Joe elaborated of the fitness instructor and former dancer and professional ice skater, "[She is] just, like, a lovely person. I think she would make an excellent lead."
The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise alum added, "And honestly, selfishly, I can't wait to see them cast 60 to 70-year-old men because we're going to start seeing some real comedy."
Gerry's season of The Golden Bachelor attracted millions of viewers, more than recent seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.
The Golden Bachelor's premiere reached over 11 million total viewers across linear and streaming platforms after seven days of viewing, according to Variety.
Gerry's televised quest to find a forever partner reportedly achieved the largest multi-platform audience for The Bachelor franchise since Clare Crawley and Tayshia Adams' 2020 The Bachelorette season.
"I think they'll be able to do it [again] pretty easily," Joe said when asked if Gerry was the key to making The Golden Bachelor successful.
Wells agreed, saying, "I think it'll be very easily duplicated but no one's ever going to be Gerry."
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Wells said he and The Bachelor franchise producers often talk about what makes a really good show.
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"[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. 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," Wells explained to the magazine.
"I think that's why everyone in America grabbed on 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.
"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.
ABC executive Rob Mills last updated fans 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!"
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 Jesse and Gerry have also voiced how they'd wholeheartedly be in favor of ABC creating a Golden Bachelorette spinoff and are very excited about the idea of it.
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