January 22, 2025 • 56 mins
Jackie and Jen chat with the Golden Bachelorette Joan Vassos about finding love in your golden years.
She shares how she almost quit during the season and reveals what kept her going.
Plus, find out which former Real Housewife of Beverly Hills star helped her deal with fame.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey guys, it's Jackie and Jen and we are two
Jersey Jays. I feel like we haven't recorded an episode
in a little while. We haven't, right, I know, our
last episode was on New Year's Day? And what which
feels like a millionaire Jens ago? What a year January
has been. I mean, it is there are there more
has happened in January of twenty five than I think
(00:23):
what happened in all of twenty four.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
It's wild, it is.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
It is. Tell me what's going on with you? Tell
me about your jam.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Personally, everything is fine, the kids are good. Aiden finally
got back. I know if you haven't followed the journey
of my injured son. He broke his leg a year ago.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This week. He broke his leg that night we were
at the Madonna concert.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Donna concert, right, and he's a very competitive basketball player.
Got back in in May, and then broke his shoulder
in July, and so he just went back in last
week to the games, and so it's like a whole
new world. I love watching play. So you always said
that you love really sports. Great, but I have a
an infection on my toe. So I got to go
to the post today and get it cut open seeing
(01:10):
your friend, your friend.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Jill, Jill. Oh nice, yeah, very nice. What's going on
with you?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
I just got back from Florida. The weather was crappy there,
but it's certainly crappier here. So one of my very
dear friends turned fifty. Which it's hard to imagine that
I'm friends with a fifty year old, because that just
seems I'm friends with you, and you're forty seven.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
You're not that far past fifty six.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Believe me, you will see fifty six.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Okay, forty seven.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Still right, Jack, forty eight, forty eight, forty eight, forty
eight to fifty six, all right, you'll tell me when
you turn fifty six. But it's it is. There's a
spread there, and there's and so my dear friend, we
all there are a bunch of us from here. She
used to living Upper Saddle River. We all went there.
She was in Bocan now and she made it a
ton of new friends, and a lot of them are younger,
(01:58):
and so were there, and we're all dolled up, and
the whole thing. I'm looking around, looking to the left,
looking at the right, there are these beautiful to me
young women, and I'm like almost like pointing my finger
at her. I'm like, what have you? What if you
got me into? Why am I here and not here
with these young gorgeous whatever. I was just being I
(02:19):
was just kidding around. But it's funny.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Did she moved to Boca because she was empty nesting?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
And she just no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Our kids were actually going into like their senior year
of high school. She moved to the Yes, and maybe
it was maybe it was Gane and Jesse's junior year right,
which you would think it was the best move she
ever made. There were a ton of reasons why she
did it. She's an unbelievable mother, and I have to
(02:47):
say it just it could not have worked out better
for them. The kids love it, loved it, They acclimated
it very easily, made a ton of friends, and she
absolutely loves being there.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
So oh great, Yeah, that okay.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
You know, I thought of another topic that we should
tackle another time because I went on this little hair
journey and so my hair is getting this is a
middle aged woman. Shit, my hair is getting so thin.
You don't have that problem, but I do have any problem.
Oh well, your hair looks so like thick and we
have extensions. No, no, I never thought, but like I
(03:27):
never thought I would need extensions, well like even in
the front though, you see, like I'm so thin. So anyway,
so I tried this medication my my colorist, who I've
been with for over twenty years. I love him so much,
and uh, he said to me, have you ever tried
low dose monoxidale? And I said, Uh, it's like rogaine,
(03:47):
isn't it. Yeah, well, it's like it's a medication. And
so I called my dermatologist, who I love, and she said, yeah,
it works great. I said any side effects? She said,
you could get some bloating. So of course I'm one
of the few percent. I got so freaking bloated. Most
people do not. I got so bloated, like my rings
(04:09):
wouldn't go on my finger as we so feeling. After
two weeks, I went off of it, but I was
upset because at that point I was like, you know,
for two weeks, I was like, oh, I'm gonna have
Blake Lively hair, you know, and maybe not Blake Lively.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Oh well maybe not right now.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And so I went off and I was like, you
know what, I want to do something, but I have
no idea what I can do?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
What about I started, what about neutralil?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
No, no, no, I've been on neutrophall for seven years
and it's fabulous.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
But I think at a certain.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Point it just turns into a vitamin and like it stops.
I don't know, I could be wrong.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Don't sue me.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Attend you take biotine.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Well, that's part of neutrofall. So I but I wanted
something stronger. I don't want a vitamin. I don't want
to mess around. I want, like, I want to do
something real. So I was thinking to myself, God, there's
so many women who have this problem and who don't
know what the hell they can do about it. So
I think we should do an episode on all there
are so many things you can do for thinning hair.
(05:02):
So I actually it's funny. I called this one place
and they were just so hungry to sell me. Like
everything they were selling, they convinced me over the phone
that I needed a hair transplant. I was without seeing you,
without seeing oh. I had to send them pictures of
my head.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
But I I.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Literally for for a few hours, was like, Okay, I'm
going to get a hair transplant.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And then I was like, wait a second, really don't
need a hair transplant. I got news to you.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I have a friend who did do that, a woman,
a woman. They when they did, they put the needles
into your scalp.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
That's that's something different. That's different. That's what I ended
up doing. Oh, you did that very past. So I
went somewhere local. I went for a console. It's called PRP,
Yes and Yes, and they said I was the perfect
candidate because it's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I know our guest is coming on in a few minutes,
but I'll just tell you.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
So they they took three D images of my head
and they showed me that a healthy follicle.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
So your follicles have to be like alive.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
And active in order for PRP to work, because what
they do they draw your blood and they inject your
blood back into the follicle to get it like really
growing again. But they took three D images of my
head and they showed me that each follicle should have
two pieces of hair growing out of it, and mine
have one.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
A lot of mine have won.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
So I had my first round of PRP eight days ago,
and it was fantastic. You go for four months, one
treatment a month, and and then your hair starts really
growing back in hurt.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I hurt. My friend said it was very painful.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
It was not.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
It was only five minutes. I have a super strong
pain threshold, by the way, but it was it wasn't
so bad.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And the next few days your head to like a
tiny bit sore.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
But I'm really really excited about it.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
But we should do an episode about so many pe
people reached out to me because I put it on
my Instagram right about like, oh my god, I'm dying
to know if it works because I have such a
thinning hair.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
All of this ties in beautifully to our topic and
in terms of talking to our guests today, because it's
all about the Asian process, and it's all about you know,
what happens, and it's all about you know, the things
that are great about it, the things that are difficult
about it. You know, we started this podcast, as you
of course know, with the idea that we would talk
(07:16):
about what happens as you get older as a woman,
you know, reaching forty eight, reaching fifty six. Our guest
is a little bit older than that. But how to
handle all those changes, It is not easy. It is
so challenging.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
So we have Joan Vassos, who was the Golden Bachelorette,
and it's not.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So much today.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I mean, we'll ask some questions about the Bachelerette, of course,
but I'm really interested in the whole process of dating
in your sixties, of finding love as a widow when
you still you know, there's one thing about you know,
getting divorced that's not easy, but you are almost ready
(08:11):
to move on and to you know, reclaim your life.
I imagine being a widow, it's different. It feels different
because you never fell out of love, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Yeah. I mean, I my mom has gone through divorce
and she was widowed, and I think both you know,
she was actually very open having had been through both
those experiences. I think she, you know, my mom is
a woman who wants to spend her life with someone
and wants to be married, So, you know, I don't know. Yeah,
(08:45):
I'm sure it is very different. I'm sure there are
people that get divorced and they're like, I will never
get married again, you know, or even more, who knows, well,
Joan is going to be able to tell us a
little bit more about what that felt like. But we
have so many questions for her and she is so
a rock star. She is you know. Also, she's so
beautiful really just really in terms of like you know,
(09:08):
we're talking about hair thinning, like she this is a
woman who is on top of whatever her beauty secrets are.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
You know, I was like staring at her hair.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
I do this thing where I stare at people's hair,
like because I'm so entranced by like how it's so
different from person to person, even when off the topic,
like all the ship that's going on with uh Lively
and Justin Baldoni. Every time there's a headline, like I
read the headline and then I stare at her hair.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
It's crazy, Like I can't get over her hair.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Dustin does.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
So I am super excited.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
You're right, she's beautiful, she's elegant, well spoken, and I
can't wait.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
To talk to her.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
So to me too.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Let's bring hi.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
Hello, Hi, how's it going?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
It's going? How is it going for you? Lady?
Speaker 5 (09:59):
It's all the Jay's yes, Jersey j oh yeah, you're
j two.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
You want to be our third a man. We're so
excited to have you here. Thank you for coming.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
I certainly are, thank you for wanting to talk to me.
We were just talking about how beautiful you are. So
we're gonna be superficial for the first part of this
and just because you just are. But also, you know,
we talk a lot about women of a certain age,
and Jackie was just talking about her hair and her
hair thinning as she's noticed that she's getting older. But anyway,
(10:30):
the point is, you are so gorgeous. Just give us
before we even start. We need a couple of your secrets, lady, Like,
what are you doing.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
I'm gonna be totally honest of botox, Yes, good makeup.
I think I finally after a lot of years, in
the last maybe five years, actually paying attention to like
the face regimen. You know. You know, for years I
just put whatever moisturizer was in my cabinet on, and
now I kind of I do the vitamin A and
(10:58):
vitamin C rent and all. So now I'm just trying
to maintain. I know I'm not going to get any better,
but I'm just trying to not look any worse.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Well, so basically it's genetic for you. You just got lucky.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Yes we are chemicals.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, yes, we are a podcast about middle aged women
and all the life issues that we encounter. As middle
aged women, and of course one of those is dating
in middle age and finding love again and what that
feels like, because it's different than when you are younger
and dating.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
There's a lot of there's a lot of other.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Things to consider, you know, your children, your families, your lifestyle.
You know, you're you're used to a certain lifestyle. So
we're going to ask about all of those things. But
first we just want to ask about the show about
the Bachelorette a little bit, of course. So did you
want to go on? And did somebody push you towards it?
How did you get cast on that show?
Speaker 4 (11:56):
I actually self applied, which is not normally certain actual
seems to be the story more for women and then
men all seem to be applied by their daughters. It
seems to be like a thing.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Oh that's so interesting.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Yeah, that was definitely like the story I hear from
almost all men, like they don't self apply generally, their
daughters do it, or some woman friend of theirs does
it for them. But for me and for a lot
of women on my show, like when I was on
Golden Bachelor, we applied ourselves. So I think maybe we
are more conscious of like meeting somebody. Meeting somebody is harder,
(12:31):
and you know, dating apps don't always work out, and
you know, for some reason, maybe it's easier for men,
or maybe they just don't care as much. And so
I felt like in general, the women applied themselves, which
is what I did, but I did it after a
little while. So I had been a widow for about
two years, which was also a little on the soon side.
(12:52):
But I kept thinking like I didn't want to go
through the second half of my life alone, and I
felt like I was six together. I was fifty eight
when I was widowed, and I kept thinking like I
could have a whole nother life. I could have a
whole nother thirty years with somebody like I have with John.
So I had thirty two years with John. So I
kept thinking I could have a bunch of time, But
(13:14):
it could take me some time to find somebody, because
the pool is not very big, and especially if you
want to stay like close to where you live, and
I did because I have my kids and my grandkids
live here and I didn't want to leave. So then
the pool was really small. So I was out to
dinner one with a friend and we were sitting at
a bar at a local restaurant eating dinner, and I
(13:34):
was like, I don't know how I'm ever going to
meet somebody, you know. I kept thinking somebody would introduce
me to this great guy you know that they work with,
or a friend of the families or whatever. That never happened.
Everybody said, oh, you don't want any of the guys
I know or you know, I just don't know anybody.
And then I thought, well, I'll just meet somebody organically.
Like sitting at a bar at a restaurant as opposed
(13:56):
to sitting at a table makes you more open for
people to talk to you. Well, certainly people talk to us.
I was always there like with a girlfriend, but they
were never single. So and then I looked around and
I said, look, everybody at this restaurant is a couple.
And even if I saw, like, let's say, across the bar,
I saw a man, I thought he was handsome, if
he was my age, I would assume he was married.
(14:17):
So I would never like send a drink over or
a wave, or you know, make any any you know, advance,
because I would have assumed that he was already married,
which is very different from the younger generation. They go
everywhere and they think everybody here are single, and it's
very different for when you're older. So then I tried
dating app on one and it was like a job.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
All.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I felt like I had spent all the time on
my phone, you know, being witty and being flirty, and
at the time I would meet the guy and he
wasn't anything that he said he was. They lied about
their ages, they didn't look like their pictures, so that
wasn't like a really positive experience. So I came home
after being out that night with a friend and I
(14:59):
turned on the TV and they were doing a casting
call for this Golden Bachelor. So I filled out the
form because I thought it was like the universe talking
to me.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Yeah, well, I will tell you I was my sister.
So I'm fifty six when my sister is fifty five.
But a few years ago, maybe even like five years ago,
but I remember she wrote an open letter to The
Bachelor of producers and whenever she found their corporate she
was so angry that there was not she couldn't find
herself represented on the Bachelor, and she's like, when are
(15:28):
you going to do a show for women? And it
hies I think there's a lot to do with what
you talked about on the show, which is that feeling
when you get older as a woman that you're invisible,
and she felt really invisible, and you know, so they
never even responded to her. But you know, she wrote
this sort of a I don't know how angry it was,
but it was she was angry, like I don't want
(15:50):
to only watch twenty three year olds, you know, book
for love, Let's watch women are age.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
So what did your.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Family think of it when you were when new or
a cast? Were they happy about it?
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Upset?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
You know, not everybody likes to be thrust into the spotlight.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Very true, and like that was my choice, not theirs,
to be in the spotlight, and they didn't particularly want
to be the spotlight, to be honest, and they also
kind of like me. So when I was cast on
the Golden Bachelor, like it was the first ever of
a golden series and you didn't really know what it
was going to look like, like are we going to
look undignified or were going to look foolish? What are
(16:27):
they going to make us do or what are they
going to ask us to do? Is it going to
be the same stuff? That they asked the younger people
to do or is it going to be something different?
Are they going to you know, tailor it to us.
So I was a little nervous going on the show.
I actually had thoughts of not doing it. It took me,
I came down to about the last day that they
needed to know to say that I was going to
do it, because I was nervous. And then the first
(16:49):
few days I was there, I kind of hung in
the background. I didn't really jump to the front. I
didn't be like, look at me, look at me. I
hung way back because I still was kind of feeling
it out. I didn't know. I didn't know the produces
hardly at all, other than the interaction I had, you know,
prior to going to the show. You have a little
interaction with them, but not a lot. So I didn't
really know. I wasn't confident that their intentions were completely good.
(17:11):
They were making a TV show. I didn't know if
they were really wanting us to find love or they
just wanted to, you know, show old people dating. So
it took me a little while to trust them. And
when I did, I mean it certainly was. I was
completely wrong about that. They were very, very very Their
intentions were very good. Obviously I wouldn't have gone on
the Golden Bacherette, but you know, to take a little while.
(17:32):
And same for my kids. You know, they weren't there,
they didn't meet everybody. So when it finally came to
it actually airing on TV, they all kind of stood
back a little bit and hoping, I didn't, you know,
make myself look foolish.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah, and I'm curious if did you want to be
I mean Jackie and I I I went on to
Jersey Housewives. I was, you know, fifty three. Jackie was
way younger than that, but also forty one. Yeah, forty one,
but at three, you know, it what an adventure and
as I know it has been for you as well.
But did you want to be on TV? Was it?
(18:07):
Are you somebody that had always Oh? Well, I mean
I don't want to speak for Jackie, but for me,
I had kind of dreams of always being one. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
I kind of wanted to see how it felt to
be famous.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Yeah, yeah, not really so I was up till being
on the show. I was kind of a shy person.
I was a computer science major in college. I wrote
code for a living, so I wasn't like an out there.
I had a huge phobia of being on stage, which
you saw on The Golden Bachelor when I had to
do the talent show, I was terrified getting up there.
(18:41):
So and it took me a little while to come
into like like where I am today with this whole thing,
which I'm very comfortable with it. But I wasn't a
person seeking like fame and wasn't wasn't dying to be
on TV. I just didn't see another way of doing this.
So like if if I was stalled out on a
dating app and meeting somebody organically, and I still wanted
(19:02):
to meet somebody, like I had to do something different,
and that just is what popped in on my TV
that night. So I did it. But it was uncomfortable
writing over in the limo the first night getting out,
you know at a Golden Bachelor, I was terrified. I
almost like quit while I was on When I was
(19:23):
on a limo, Wow, and I was the last person
out of the limo. So of the twenty two people,
I was number twenty two. So I had this entire
day and evening of this danks building up the whole day.
I didn't get out of a lim until like eleven
o'clock at night. I was by the time I got
out of there, I could hardly speak. So I was
definitely not unnatural and it was definitely not dying to
(19:44):
be able to.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
D And you knew nothing about him, there was no
nobody had given you any information at all.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
She did. So he got introduced on I think Good
Morning America like a mole. Yeah, so he had been introduced,
so we all knew a little, but he knew nothing
about us. He'd never you know, names don't get released
so much later till actually we finish all the taping
is when they finally, you know, to say who we
all are. But nope, Yeah, so I didn't know who
he was and a little bit about.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Him, Joan, do you feel like in a comparison of
the two shows, so first you were part of a
group of twenty two women on the batch the Golden Bachelor,
and then you were the Golden Bachelorette with a group
of around the same number of men, do you feel
(20:30):
like aging men and aging women were treated differently like
the women that were in the first round the twenty
two women, do you feel like there was a sense
of well, the men are sexy, the women are just aging.
I know you weren't treated like that on the show,
but in social media, do you do you get what
I'm asking?
Speaker 4 (20:48):
I definitely do. And now that you've mentioned it, like
I've had that feeling and you verbalized it really well,
because you do, like you know, they want to show
the women as like they're active, and they are, you know,
they're vibrant still. But our season, so the twenty two
women skewed much older than the men from my Golden
Bacherette season. So the Golden Bachelor, he was seventy when
(21:11):
he you know, when our showed air, I was the
youngest person on there. I was sixty, and there were
other sixty year olds. But then there were also people
in well into their seventies, So the oldest person was
seventy five. Sundra was seventy five. So they skewed a
lot older and we acted a little older, or they
didn't expect us to be as you know, active or
as vibrant the men, I felt like they depicted as
(21:35):
like In fact, they didn't even talk about most of
the women's professions very much, or didn't talk about like
their careers or you know, even talk about how we
raised our families. Partially because it was a much shorter season.
There was only four weeks of the Golden Boucher and
my season was seven half weeks, so you got a
lot more opportunity to meet them men. But I did
(21:56):
feel like the men they wanted to show them as
being really fun, like as having sense of humor and
like walking around the mansion and.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
By the way, and yeah, I mean I think happened.
I don't really think about it then, but that was
part of what was besides, of course, the fact that
it was you and that was, you know, amazing in
and of itself. But the men were so adorable and
they were so connected and you're right, even though I
felt like they were more connecting I'm the Bachelor and
(22:25):
the Golden Bachelor, but it definitely was different, and I
didn't like, it's funny just to hear you say that
out loud. I didn't really think it through, but that's interesting.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
But they had more time to you know, introduce the
man and get you allow you to get to know
them more, which I think helped immensely. People like really
connected with the men and they really felt like their
stories because they got to know them a little better.
That wasn't true with the women. And the women we've
all talked about this. We have a big group chat.
There's all twenty two of us are on a group chat,
(22:54):
and once in a while, yeah, and everyone we have
an opportunity to see, you know, a chunk of each
other out of time and we have that conversation. We said,
you know that it was a little different because we
there was just so limited time. So there was only
so much time. And also the episodes weren't only an
hour long. The first like four episodes of The Golden
(23:14):
Vetch Threat were an hour and a half or two.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Hours, and that was a half? Was it that on
a technicality?
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Why did it happen like that?
Speaker 4 (23:21):
I think it's because they weren't really sure that the
show was going to be successful, so they weren't investing
as much in it. Like they didn't travel as much.
They didn't they didn't do a lot. They it just
wasn't as long.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, you left early from the first season or a
family emergency. Did you let the producers know that you
wanted to come back in some capacity or how did
they know that you were open to it.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
So when I was leaving, it was proposed to me.
They said, you know a lot of times in these situations,
I guess this has happened before. You know, people try
to come back, or we liked for you to have
to come back, you to be able to come back.
So I said, I was open to it. I just
had to see how things kind of went and how
home and so I was in contact with them a
lot between the time that I left and the time
(24:06):
when it would have been like logical for me to come back,
which was I left on a Thursday. Maybe I could
get things better by that next Monday, which I wasn't
able to. But then there was another chunk of time.
So at that point, since it was such a quick season,
they were already starting to go on hometowns. So as
Gary was on hometowns, I was still in contact with
(24:27):
the producers to see if maybe I could come back
after that. At that point, he had connected with somebody.
Obviously it was with a tree seth, but he had
connected and maybe more, but he connected with somebody, and
we kind of collectively decided that it wouldn't be good
for me to come back at this point.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Did you have that feeling when you left, Like, I
don't know, I only know what I saw, but what
you were attached to Gary in that way? Did you
have that sort of heartbreaking feeling or because I look
at you now with chalk and I can't imagine if
it had been you and Gart you just seemed I
see it, you know, And I don't know if I
even saw it then it was But how how hard
(25:06):
was that to separate forget from the show, but from
him from.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
Him personally, So it kind of was like a revelation moment.
Up until that point, it had been about at this point,
about two and a half years since John had passed away,
and I had never had any strong feelings about another man.
I'd gone on many dates, none of them great, and
he never had a feeling. I never had the idea that, Okay,
(25:30):
I actually see myself moving on. I was just kind
of going through the motions with those other dates. So
when I had that date with Geary that night, first
of all, like it felt very special because I won
this talent competition, which was crazy, and it was just
because I think I wrote this heartfelt poem and then
I got up there. I had the courageing up there
(25:51):
and actually say it, and I think he just you know,
took pity on me a little bit, but I felt
that very flattered that yeah, and I felt very flattered
that we picked me, So that kind of already made
the date like a little more special. And then we
really had great conversations because he was really good at that.
He understood that, you know, the time that he gets
to spend with each person is really important, and you
(26:11):
have to have kind of important conversations. You can't just
talk about you know, you know what your dog's name,
or we're like, you know, what do you like to
eat for dinner or whatever. You kind of move on,
like to family, you know, to your family, and to
like your dreams and what you look your future is
going to look like and things like that. So we
had these important conversations, and for the first time I
saw myself like in as a couple, and even if
(26:34):
it wasn't with him, I started realizing that I was
going to be able to do that, like my heart
was going to be able to get there, because up
until then, my head was the only part that was there.
I knew I wanted it, but my heart hadn't followed yet.
And at that point my heart followed, and I don't
know if it was with him at the time. You know,
it was like it just felt good, And when I
said goodbye the next morning, it was painful. It really was.
(26:54):
I felt like we had had a connection. You know,
at this point, it's like a really good friendship. We
are a really good friend still, you say in much Yeah, yeah,
we stay in touch. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
I can't help but think that he wanted you, he
wanted to give it a try after him and Teresa
broke up. I'm guessing I'm not going to comment. If
I were him, I would have wanted to give it
a try. Yeah, okay, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
So I know a lot of people who are getting divorced.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
I feel like, at my age, I'm almost fifty, a
lot of marriages are dropping like flies around me and
I and some of the people in the divorce mindset
like you're looking for a clean slate. It's definitely hard,
but like you're ready to try again and ready to
have love again. I imagine it might be a little bit
different when you lose someone that you're still in love with,
so dating after becoming a widow might feel different. Did
(27:40):
you have any kind of guilt or any kind of
was it hard to allow yourself to be in love again?
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Yeah, So, like, great question, because I didn't realize I
had that guilt until I started having feelings for Chalk,
So I thought like every thing was good. My heart
and my head had now finally figured out that they
wanted the same thing, and that I was moving forward
and I'm here now, I'm the Golden Bachelorette. I'm totally committed.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
I went on the show like feeling like I was
really really ready. And first, you know, a couple of
weeks all good, you know, cruising along, and then I
started feeling this terrible guilt, and I was like how
And I felt like I was being not genuine to
the man. I thought that I was now not being
honest to them because suddenly I felt like I wasn't ready,
(28:33):
like I wasn't ready for a relationship because I realized
I was still and would always be in love with John,
and I didn't know how to reconcile that. So I
almost quit.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
So I had a conversation, really, I know you were
you almost quit?
Speaker 3 (28:48):
How far were you into it when you.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Felt like that week three?
Speaker 3 (28:52):
And they would must have been freak. Do you tell
the producers they must have freaked out?
Speaker 4 (28:56):
I did not.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
I talked to the psychiatry and quit our four times
in the first season. Exactly, you go, girl, I talked
to the psychiatrist.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
So I first of all, I was really tired. So
we'd been filming for about three weeks, and I had
gone on a bunch of dates, and you know, it's
all really emotional, and you also are getting very tired.
You know, you're not sleeping in the regular place or
dating a lot of minute. It's a lot of work.
And I was just getting really really tired at this point,
like it all kind of hit one day, and so
(29:30):
I asked to speak to the psychiatrists. There's two of
them that's always available on set with the contestants, and
then they are also available to the you know, the
main So they came into my room and I was like,
I don't know if I can keep doing this. I
still a lot of John, like like how do you
do this? And they go, well, why do you think
you have to not be in love with John? And
I go, because, how do you, like, these are men,
(29:52):
they expect me to fall in love with them. You
know one of them does. And they said, well you
can still do that. They said, picture it like this,
picture that John is a balloon in this hand and
this other person is a balloon in this hand, and
you don't have to let go of this one to
hold onto this one, that there was room for both
of them in your heart. And it was like the
free pass I needed, Like that's all I needed to
(30:13):
say to me. I was like, oh, so I don't
have to be another job because I don't think I
can ever not be in love with them. And they said, no,
you're fine, that that doesn't have to happen, and it
tried to would be weird if it did.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
I love that you have discussions with John when he
was sick.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Yeah, well I didn't want to because I was in denial,
the total denial that he was going to die. In fact,
I thought he was the one person that survives pancreatic
cancer and I was just being naive and I just
wasn't watching what was happening around me. He had gone
from being about two hundred and twenty pounds to one
hundred and twenty pounds and he was just wasting away
before my eyes. And he knew he was dying, but
(30:50):
I just wasn't going to accept it. I was going
to talk about it. I was taking him to appointments
and we were tied to empty Anderson to get him
cared down, you know, in Texas, and we were doing
everything we do to help him, you know, survive this.
But one day he was really sick and he was
laying on the sofa and he was sleeping on and
off all day and he called me over and he's like,
(31:10):
sit down next to me, pats right next to him,
and he takes my hand and he said, you were
the best wife ever and we had a great life together.
And I don't want you to be alone. I want
you to find somebody when I'm gone. And I said,
I am not having this conversation with you. I said,
you are not going anywhere. And I was bad that
he was saying that to me, and I was like,
(31:32):
I was just ignoring it. But I and I'd have
forgot about that conversation for a little while, and it
came back to me one day when I was so
really really in the morning, you know, stage, and I
remember him saying that, and I was like, what a
gift that was that I didn't know he was given
me such a gift, because I'm not sure if I
(31:53):
could have done this whole thing if he hadn't given
me that gift. But he did, and I really really
really like leaned on that a lot as I was
moving through this whole thing, you know, as I was
on the show and falling in love.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
So that's really yeah, I'm like crying.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Think if it was you, if it was God forbid you.
I mean, you think about the person that you think
about them alone, and it's the hard you don't want
them alone.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I want that No, especially from the marriage after you
and Chock fell in love and got engaged.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
How did you hide that relationship? Did they give you
like pentometers for what you were allowed to do?
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Yeah, they pretty much say you cannot tell anybody, you know,
because we want and we didn't want to tell anybody.
We want, like we want everybody to watch the show obviously,
so it leaks out, you know, that kind of spoils
the ending. So we certainly were really careful about who
we told to. Obviously, our families knew, and I had
a couple of close friends. But after that, you don't
tell anybody but Batcher's really really good about making sure
(32:58):
you have time to you know, spend time together because
you know you still you've been you know, living this
kind of you know, life in a bubble when you're filming,
and so it's kind of a false reality. So and
even though you know until you actually get announced in
at the finale, you're still living in a little bit
of fostering reality. They give you time away from cameras.
(33:20):
So we got they call them happy couple of visits,
and we got five of them, and so.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
They my husband loves happy couple visits, so that's what
you call them.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
Got it. So they would they close to La and
they put you up in like an airbnb for four
or five days at a time. You can't lead. You
go into disguise. You find a different airports and they
just put you up in a house and you and
you get to know each other. So they bring you groceries,
you can rent movies. I had no idea. It's so fun.
(33:55):
It's so vacation like every other week. It's so fun.
And we had like a pool, we had a tennis
ware one of the places we played tennis, We did puzzles,
we had It was.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Weird to transition from having so much chaos to just
you or I would have been nervous, just like, now,
what is this going to look like? Right?
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Is it going to trans the first happy couple visit
I was super nervous about. So we hadn't So the
first one didn't happen until September, and we had gotten
engaged in early August and we had a whole month
of just kind of talking on the phone. So that
first day he got to did I get to the house. Oh,
I got to the house first, and he came about
a couple hours later, and I was so nervous.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
I'm like, oh my god, and you say it, yeah,
I was so gary it was.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
So I had a bottle of wine open already, and
he pulls up stampole in the driveway in his car.
And all these places have gates, so you like, when
you get out, nobody can see who's getting out whatever,
So they closed the gate and then he gets out
of the car and I meet him at the door
and I have a glass of wine for him. I
have my glass of wine, and it's like early evening
and we immediately were back to where we were before.
(35:05):
So that mum, it was like nothing. It was like
we were right back and we had a great dinner
and we talked. We left and we started watching our
Netflix series and like everything was perfect.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
And it must have felt so good to be able
to finally tell the world and get back out there
and be.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Open about and everything.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
It was so good.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
I know that on our show social media can sometimes
be really really tough on.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
You, so always be I want to know how it's.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Been, not only for you in terms of being an
aging woman, Like we both get a lot of comments
about our looks as aging women, but I want to
know about that part, but also protecting Chalk from you know,
you chose him out of the twenty two I assume
meant and and you know you really can't protect him,
(36:08):
this person that you love now from what comes what
comes at him because you chose him. And I know
that's really hard. I've dealt with that on our show
as well. So how has the social media been for you?
How do you handle it?
Speaker 4 (36:23):
So social media? The day I got announced was at
these things called the Upfronts in New York City, and
sitting next to me was Lisa vander Pump and she says,
I have a piece of advice for you. She said,
do not listen to social media. She said, it will
destroy you. She said. It took me years to take
my own advice. She use and I'm so much happier now.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Do you know how she was? By the way, did
you watch Housewives? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (36:49):
Exactly. Oh my gosh, yeah, I love listening. I love
she's still cool. I want to be here when I
grow Yeah, so that was like great advice excefre I
didn't really listen to it because I was like, oh, yeah, yeah,
you're like really popular, you have a lot of people
that know you. I'm not going to be that person.
But sure enough, like the minute I came off the show,
(37:09):
as the show aired, So when you're first the kind
of cast, like a lot of people don't have opinions
about it. I didn't get a lot of a lot
of responses to things, but eventually once the show started airing,
that's when all the mean people kind of came out.
So if I had one hundred comments on a post
or something, ninety five would be really nice. Five would
(37:32):
be awful. And the awful ones are so much meaner
than the nice ones that those.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Are, and they're the ones you're a member to remember.
Speaker 4 (37:39):
That word for a word, and like why you know,
and saying things like you treated the men so poorly
and you didn't give them a chance to talk, and
you know how ugly I am and why do you
use much chore? And you can't move your lip and
all this like mean stuff. So and you your hair
etenngines are terrible and like they attack you like the
way you look, they tech you, the way you act,
they look. They never really brought my family into it,
(38:02):
So if they brought my family into it, I would
have been like mama bear and I would have like,
I don't know what I would have done. But they
were really nice. Chalk didn't get attacked until about mid season,
when he started looking a bit like a villain, although
nobody really on my season looked like a villain, but
he was becoming, you know, like we had a kind
(38:23):
of a thing by mid season, and we were spending
a lot more time with each other, and I think
some of the men were like, hey, give us a chance.
So he kind of looked like maybe he was being
a little possessive. That's a lot of that has to
do with editing also, as you probably know, so he
kind of started getting an attack then, and I felt
bad about that because although he signed up to the
(38:45):
show just like I did, so unlike your families, because
you were in the Housewives, they didn't sign up for it,
and so you probably felt a little more protective. I
knew that he knew what he was getting into and
that we all signed up for this, and I knew
in the end, as a season progresses, he is going
to be you end up looking like a really good guy,
like the guy he really is. But there were just
some you know, some editing and that happened that made
(39:07):
him look not you know, maybe gave him a bad
edit at points best person.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
I'm sorry, I mean to interrupt. You good to being
younger and having to handle that like I think.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Yeah, you know, just like just like you.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
I at the beginning and then I only did two
seasons of Jersey Housewives, but the second season I certainly
got a lot more the negative comments than I did
the first season. But again, I started I was fifty three.
I'm fifty six now, and I think that if I
had been younger, like most women are when they start
out on the Housewives, I think I would have had
(39:41):
a much harder time. You'd never want to hear nasty
things about yourself, but at a certain age, and I
think that's why I love the Golden bats and the
Golden baths er at so much. You are. One great
thing about aging is you know who you are, and
you've been through stuff. You've been through real stuff, and
in my mind, you have even more to offer the
(40:03):
world in terms of being on television. I'm a little
you know, I'm a little biased in this area, but
I think that people have have more almost sometimes to offer.
But you know, dealing with it when you're twenty something
or even early thirties and it's I can't even imagine.
(40:23):
You have to have a very strong sense of self
to be able to handle all of that.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
Totally agree with you.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Did any of the social comments make you feel like, well,
maybe I should do this, or maybe I should do
this to fix you know what they were talking about.
I think you're stunning, imperfect. But you know, I got
off my show and I was like, oh God, I
need a nose job and a facelift and hair translants
and you know, yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
All those things. I think all of those I like,
I stand in my my mirror and I go like
this and the gool I could look a lot better.
And you know, I'm the same. And like you said,
for a young person, like how destroying that would be,
Like I like, I can accept it, like my aging Okay,
so this is what I'm going to like, I'm going to,
you know, fight this as hard as I can, but eventually,
you know it's going to end. When you're young and
(41:07):
you're feeling like that, you don't you know, I can
do this gracefully. I feel like when you're young, you don't.
You don't give yourself that kind of break. You're like,
oh my god, this looks like I got to do
something a lot of yours. I got a live bit
the space or whatever with this body I can't imagine,
Which is why I feel like social media is so
damaging to think about a thirteen or fourteen year old.
(41:28):
I know, and they're not on TV. They're just going
to school every day and they're getting an attacked. So like
when we put ourselves on TV, we know what we're
signing up for, and we can choose to look at
the stuff or not choose look at the stuff, and
you know, we could just go off the show. These
kids are just out there living. They're just going to
school every day and they're just trying to make friends
and they're trying to figure out who they are in
(41:49):
the world. And they are not like prepared for it
like we are, and they don't they're signing up for this.
It's just being the rest of them.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Did you watch The Bachelor and The Bachelor at the
you did? You did?
Speaker 4 (42:03):
Yeah? And I do see that that mean girl behavior
is like so disappointing. And I feel like so I
feel like many years ago when The Bachelor started, that
wasn't part of it. People were nice to each other,
and it gradually over the years became more of a problem.
And it came to the problem with the first with
(42:23):
the girls and then with the guys, and that happened
over several seasons, and I think the housewife set, yeah,
kind of housewife And I feel like it needs a reset,
and I don't know how to make that happen. I
was hoping that maybe Golden give it a little reset,
people would start looking at it so it can look
like this, but it never hasn't gotten one. It just
it almost escalates every year or every scene.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
That's why everyone loved Golden Bachelor and bats Rex. It
was not like that. I mean there were some little
petty funny things on the Bachelor and then the Bachelorette.
I just saw these men. It was, it was, and
it was it was more fun to watch, at least
that's how I feel about it than than watching you know,
the nastiness.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
So now you're engaged, you're in love with chop and
then comes in like.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Public scrutiny of your relationship. Has that affected you, guys?
Speaker 4 (43:14):
Yeah, I look at like this. I look at the
kind of publications every day to see like what's out.
And it's funny it changes from day to day. Like
I'll get screen rant and like one day it'll say, oh,
they're solid and they're good, they're gonna get married, and
the next day the stay they're on the road to
separating and they're not together anymore. And whatever. By the way,
I'm here in Maryland. Chuck is right in the other room.
(43:35):
He's working, and it is working. It's fine. But like
they just take little hints from stupid things, you know,
Like we were together on my birthday. Well we've seen
each other the week before, we've seen each other the
week after. Just he needed to work. I thinks I
needed to do. You know, I'm sixty two, Like my
birthday isn't like a year old birthdays. You know you're
gonna be together that day. So you know, they took
(43:57):
that and ran with it. So, you know, the public
scrutiny is ridiculous and it's it's not true. And we
do feel a little bit of an obligation to post
now together or whenever we're together, just to validate that
we are still together. But I know it's you know,
people invested in this journey and so to leave them
at the curb and say we're not going to you know,
(44:19):
show you how we're doing, is not the right thing
to do. But for you, for like the you know,
the publications, to assume that we're not good because we're
not posting every other day is ridiculous. We're just not
together every other day. We're together like every other week
or every three weeks, and we're but we're just because
we're not posting doesn't mean we're not together.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Love right, No, I love it.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I love that you guys seem very good at not
letting it affect your relationship and what you know is real.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Yeah, what are you yourself doing now with all of this?
I mean everyone always asks Jackie and I and not
just us, but anybody that's been on reality TV, like,
now you have this platform, where do you see this
going from here? And I don't mean in terms of
your relationship, I mean just in terms of do you
you know, has this opened up doors for you? Do
you want it to open doors for you? Do you
want this to translate into other potentially career opportunities?
Speaker 4 (45:10):
Yeah? I I never expected this, so I hadn't put
any thought into any of this until after the kind
of the season ended and I thought, well, you know there.
You know, we always asked to do a lot of interviews,
and people want to hear this story and it's indifferent
than a younger dating story. And that was kind of
part of my goal when I went on the show,
(45:30):
was to not like I knew it was about me
finding love, but I felt like there were all these
other people that were my age and maybe a little
younger and a little older, but in the same weird
boat of finding themselves being single at this you know,
kind of second half of their life, and I wanted
to represent that whole group, not it just be about me,
but it'd be about all these people and get people
(45:51):
hope and like show that it's possible and it could
be fun, it could be dignified, and you shouldn't feel
guilty and all those things, all those feelies that I
was feeling like, I just like put them right out
so I could, you know, actually maybe like be an
example to people that are thinking about doing it. So
I'd love to continue that, like, you know, whatever that
(46:13):
looks like, if it's a podcast or if it's TV,
or if it's a book, or if it's none of
those things, it is what it is. I got, honestly
exactly what I wanted from this. I found my fiance.
I found the second level of my life. So if
nothing comes of it, I got exactly why I went
on the show. But if something, you know, more comes
of it, I you know, I would welcome the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Yeah, I love it. Do you think you guys have
got married? I know everyone asked that, but yeah, yeah, you.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Know, when I went on the show, I was not
actually looking necessary to get married. I don't feel like
I don't have the biological clock and I having kids.
You know, we're not e merging. We're just I didn't
see a need to get married, and I actually didn't
even see a need to get engaged. I said when
I went on the show, I wanted to find a
(46:59):
person that I wanted to explore being together with, but
not necessarily needing to get engaged, and maybe that would
have been too quick. I figured out as I was
going through this that Chuck and I matched up in
like pretty amazing ways, and I felt like I really
knew him, So getting engaged didn't feel weird, even though
it was really really quick, And getting married now doesn't
(47:21):
feel weird either, Like I you know, I was married
for thirty two years and I loved it, and so like,
why would I not want to get married, Like, what's
the point of not getting married?
Speaker 2 (47:31):
It's right show approached you about doing it on TV.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
They have not yet.
Speaker 4 (47:38):
No, No, I think that well. And I also think
that we all kind of maybe learned a lesson from
Gary and Teresa that maybe that was too quick and
they probably don't want to make that mistake again. And
I've certainly not in any rush to get married. I
am actually really happy right now, just not have anything
to do. You know, he and I were doing some
(47:59):
press stop to go and Drew Barrymore on Thursday. We
need to do things. Yeah, so we get to do
really fun things. We're gonna go to a gulf turned
mountain in La I mean out in Carmel. iHeart Radio
is treating us, and so we get to do some
really really fun things. Like planning a wedding right now
seems like it would be like a lot of work.
(48:19):
So I'm just gonna we're just have fun right now,
and I will plan a wedding and we will get
married and it will be for the world to see
if they want to see it, or it'll just be
our private little thing with their families. However it works out,
we will get married. But I'm just sent sure man.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
And are you guys still getting a place together in
New York?
Speaker 4 (48:38):
We were there last week and extra going tomorrow again.
We keep looking. The inventory is pretty low and it'll
apparently loosen up some in the spring. So okay, So.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
We're you're settled in.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Me and Jen are only like fifteen minutes away. We're
right over the border in Jersey, so we'll come in.
We'll sit at a bar with you and have dinner. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (48:56):
I would love sec very friends.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
I have your friends. Thank you, Okay, friends, this is
really really fun.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
Anything else you would want people to know about you
or your experience or chalk.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
So I probably should like finish up with the family.
Ended up actually loving this for me and actually for them,
and they love Chalk. And my grandkids. My granddaughter who's
only fourteen months old, says, where's Chalk, word Chalk wherever?
She's like, We're so cute. I know. And last time
(49:33):
Chalk was leaving my grandson and said, I don't want
that guy to go. So everybody loves chalk. And the
families are all good. His kids are amazing. They came
and spent Thanksgiving here and I got to spend New
Year's Eve with his son in Kansas, so all is good.
All is good to families.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
I think that what I love about this the most
is that you really did do what Jackie and I
talk about all the time, which is, you know, bring
not only visibility to women and men of a certain age,
so right, so that feeling of being invisible, to really
sort of challenge that, but also to show that after
(50:11):
a certain age you're not done. You are and not
just not done with life, You're not done with feeling
sexy or wanting to connect or feel good about yourself,
like you know, the idea that sort of. I think
there's so much agism in our world and in our country,
and I absolutely love that the folks at the Bachelor,
(50:35):
you know, knew that this was important. I mean, I
think there are lots of areas that they could even
expand it into whatever. I won't go off on a tangent,
but I think that it's such a great thing that
I think women and men of all ages want to
watch you. I want to watch these guys. I want
to watch these gals. You know. It's like and see
and still get that feeling of excitement watching two people
(50:58):
of a certain age connect in that way. It's such
a breakthrough and.
Speaker 4 (51:02):
It's not gross, so I know, so like people would
be like.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
Oh, it's not gross, exactly.
Speaker 4 (51:08):
Gross, Like it doesn't gross if you kiss somebody. Yeah,
and it's and it's not a key seeing like the
guys in mina bathing suits, so you know, it doesn't
have to be a gross thing like the stereotypes. It's
time they're broken. We're not. We are way different.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Amen's sister, and I feel like it's chipping. I feel
like we're chipping away at that.
Speaker 4 (51:29):
You know, I agree with you, Yeah, but I'd.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Like to see the next one be more inclusive in
terms of sizes. That always kind of bugged me with
The Bachelor, not necessarily the Golden Bachelor, but like I
was always like, you know, there there were cookie cutter.
It looked very cookie cutter to me in terms of
body size.
Speaker 4 (51:46):
Always kind of because anyway said that to me. Someone
said that to me, I'm golden. They said, why is
everybody size two and wealthy? And I'm like, you have
no I look back at her. I usually don't answer those,
I just let go, and I would at this girl.
I said, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Look at the body types on on Golden Baucher. Not
everybody was spice too. No, not everybody did bo talks.
(52:10):
Not everybody was wealthy. I said, you have no idea
the backgrounds of these women. I mean, we had teachers there,
we had women who didn't work, we'd stayed at home moms,
We had a fitness instructor, wealthy women. We were wealthy
sized to women carried burken bags. It's not true.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Yeah. More I mean with the Bachelor, not the Golden
one that just all these everybody is just has this
rock and body and they're always in bikinis and that's fine,
and I love it too, and I love watching and
you know, it's let's say it's aspirational. But I would
love to see I don't know, some more different bodily
agreed than Yeah.
Speaker 4 (52:45):
I totally agree. They'd have one on GEN season, a
guy on Gen season that everybody fell in love with.
He was like maybe a little heavier, he was just
he was absolutely adorable and he was real popular. But
she let him go kind of early in the journey,
which I felt bad because he was like a fan favorite.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
Right right, Yeah, just and more women like that. But anyway, sorry,
I'm getting off on a little bit.
Speaker 4 (53:09):
Yes, yes, we could talk all day about what they
should do.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Joan, thank you so much for coming. We love talking to.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
You and this was really inspirational and and wishing you
and talk you know, just a lifetime of happiness together.
Speaker 4 (53:25):
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, and
I look forward to our dinner in New York City.
Speaker 3 (53:30):
The six of us, maybe just the three of us,
I don't know. We'll decide we'll figure it out.
Speaker 4 (53:34):
The more than Marrier. Thank you so much talking to you.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
Be welcome, amazing. I'm in love with her. That was amazing.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
You know, I do feel like she is so beautiful,
and I don't know, there's something that always I just
I want them. I'm hoping that they'll do not even
a Golden Bachelor brea because I think they are inclusive,
but like a Bachelor where not everyone is so gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Well, I mean, you can still be gorgeous and look different,
but I don't I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
But it wasn't like that for the Golden Bachelor or Bachelor.
They had people of all different shapes and sizes, which
I love right More like on the.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Batch, which she is I love. I love what she said.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
About the balloon, like holding the balloon in each hand.
That makes so much sense. And you know that I
imagine it must be so hard. I lost two family
members to pancreatic cancer. One was my mother's mother, and like,
it's such a painful, with painful journey. I mean, it
doesn't feel quick when you're going through it, but it's
(54:37):
you just watch someone go so quickly, and I can't
imagine how hard that would be. So I'm so I'm
so happy that she feels like she has permission from
from her husband, from the universe to try again and
to be in love again, you know, cause you get
one more complicated like when you have young kids, right,
(54:58):
Like I picture God forbid, but well there are people
there and they know they're dying, and then you have
to picture your partner with someone else. And then you
picture your kids with another parent who's getting very morbid
very quickly. But it's all very very complicated.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
Life, and it's part of getting older.
Speaker 3 (55:17):
But you'd want your kids also to have another loving parent, right,
You'd want.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
Your kids also want their parents to be happy.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
You know.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
It's not something you realize when you are a child.
But now that I'm older, I mean my parents they're
still married. They haven't lived together in twenty five years.
But when I was a kid, they fought all the time,
and as much as I never wanted them to separate,
I wished that they were happier.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
You know, And they're happy now.
Speaker 1 (55:44):
They're actually I think happily more happily married now than
they were when I was younger.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Maybe that's the answer. He's just living separately exactly.
Speaker 1 (55:53):
You haven't get the hell out, Okay, right, so this
was fabulous. I missed your face. I haven't seen you
in a little bit. I know, plan something when we
get off of here, but this was great. She was
a perfect guest and I loved it me too. Thanks you, guys,
Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
Thanks guys, see you next time.
Speaker 3 (56:10):
Bye.
Hey guys, it's Jackie and Jen and we are two
Jersey Jays. I feel like we haven't recorded an episode
in a little while. We haven't, right, I know, our
last episode was on New Year's Day? And what which
feels like a millionaire Jens ago? What a year January
has been. I mean, it is there are there more
has happened in January of twenty five than I think
(00:23):
what happened in all of twenty four.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
It's wild, it is.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
It is. Tell me what's going on with you? Tell
me about your jam.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Personally, everything is fine, the kids are good. Aiden finally
got back. I know if you haven't followed the journey
of my injured son. He broke his leg a year ago.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This week. He broke his leg that night we were
at the Madonna concert.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Donna concert, right, and he's a very competitive basketball player.
Got back in in May, and then broke his shoulder
in July, and so he just went back in last
week to the games, and so it's like a whole
new world. I love watching play. So you always said
that you love really sports. Great, but I have a
an infection on my toe. So I got to go
to the post today and get it cut open seeing
(01:10):
your friend, your friend.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Jill, Jill. Oh nice, yeah, very nice. What's going on
with you?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
I just got back from Florida. The weather was crappy there,
but it's certainly crappier here. So one of my very
dear friends turned fifty. Which it's hard to imagine that
I'm friends with a fifty year old, because that just
seems I'm friends with you, and you're forty seven.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
You're not that far past fifty six.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Believe me, you will see fifty six.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Okay, forty seven.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Still right, Jack, forty eight, forty eight, forty eight, forty
eight to fifty six, all right, you'll tell me when
you turn fifty six. But it's it is. There's a
spread there, and there's and so my dear friend, we
all there are a bunch of us from here. She
used to living Upper Saddle River. We all went there.
She was in Bocan now and she made it a
ton of new friends, and a lot of them are younger,
(01:58):
and so were there, and we're all dolled up, and
the whole thing. I'm looking around, looking to the left,
looking at the right, there are these beautiful to me
young women, and I'm like almost like pointing my finger
at her. I'm like, what have you? What if you
got me into? Why am I here and not here
with these young gorgeous whatever. I was just being I
(02:19):
was just kidding around. But it's funny.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Did she moved to Boca because she was empty nesting?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
And she just no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Our kids were actually going into like their senior year
of high school. She moved to the Yes, and maybe
it was maybe it was Gane and Jesse's junior year right,
which you would think it was the best move she
ever made. There were a ton of reasons why she
did it. She's an unbelievable mother, and I have to
(02:47):
say it just it could not have worked out better
for them. The kids love it, loved it, They acclimated
it very easily, made a ton of friends, and she
absolutely loves being there.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
So oh great, Yeah, that okay.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
You know, I thought of another topic that we should
tackle another time because I went on this little hair
journey and so my hair is getting this is a
middle aged woman. Shit, my hair is getting so thin.
You don't have that problem, but I do have any problem.
Oh well, your hair looks so like thick and we
have extensions. No, no, I never thought, but like I
(03:27):
never thought I would need extensions, well like even in
the front though, you see, like I'm so thin. So anyway,
so I tried this medication my my colorist, who I've
been with for over twenty years. I love him so much,
and uh, he said to me, have you ever tried
low dose monoxidale? And I said, Uh, it's like rogaine,
(03:47):
isn't it. Yeah, well, it's like it's a medication. And
so I called my dermatologist, who I love, and she said, yeah,
it works great. I said any side effects? She said,
you could get some bloating. So of course I'm one
of the few percent. I got so freaking bloated. Most
people do not. I got so bloated, like my rings
(04:09):
wouldn't go on my finger as we so feeling. After
two weeks, I went off of it, but I was
upset because at that point I was like, you know,
for two weeks, I was like, oh, I'm gonna have
Blake Lively hair, you know, and maybe not Blake Lively.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Oh well maybe not right now.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And so I went off and I was like, you
know what, I want to do something, but I have
no idea what I can do?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
What about I started, what about neutralil?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
No, no, no, I've been on neutrophall for seven years
and it's fabulous.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
But I think at a certain.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Point it just turns into a vitamin and like it stops.
I don't know, I could be wrong.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Don't sue me.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Attend you take biotine.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Well, that's part of neutrofall. So I but I wanted
something stronger. I don't want a vitamin. I don't want
to mess around. I want, like, I want to do
something real. So I was thinking to myself, God, there's
so many women who have this problem and who don't
know what the hell they can do about it. So
I think we should do an episode on all there
are so many things you can do for thinning hair.
(05:02):
So I actually it's funny. I called this one place
and they were just so hungry to sell me. Like
everything they were selling, they convinced me over the phone
that I needed a hair transplant. I was without seeing you,
without seeing oh. I had to send them pictures of
my head.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
But I I.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Literally for for a few hours, was like, Okay, I'm
going to get a hair transplant.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And then I was like, wait a second, really don't
need a hair transplant. I got news to you.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I have a friend who did do that, a woman,
a woman. They when they did, they put the needles
into your scalp.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
That's that's something different. That's different. That's what I ended
up doing. Oh, you did that very past. So I
went somewhere local. I went for a console. It's called PRP,
Yes and Yes, and they said I was the perfect
candidate because it's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I know our guest is coming on in a few minutes,
but I'll just tell you.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
So they they took three D images of my head
and they showed me that a healthy follicle.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
So your follicles have to be like alive.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
And active in order for PRP to work, because what
they do they draw your blood and they inject your
blood back into the follicle to get it like really
growing again. But they took three D images of my
head and they showed me that each follicle should have
two pieces of hair growing out of it, and mine
have one.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
A lot of mine have won.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
So I had my first round of PRP eight days ago,
and it was fantastic. You go for four months, one
treatment a month, and and then your hair starts really
growing back in hurt.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I hurt. My friend said it was very painful.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
It was not.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
It was only five minutes. I have a super strong
pain threshold, by the way, but it was it wasn't
so bad.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And the next few days your head to like a
tiny bit sore.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
But I'm really really excited about it.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
But we should do an episode about so many pe
people reached out to me because I put it on
my Instagram right about like, oh my god, I'm dying
to know if it works because I have such a
thinning hair.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
All of this ties in beautifully to our topic and
in terms of talking to our guests today, because it's
all about the Asian process, and it's all about you know,
what happens, and it's all about you know, the things
that are great about it, the things that are difficult
about it. You know, we started this podcast, as you
of course know, with the idea that we would talk
(07:16):
about what happens as you get older as a woman,
you know, reaching forty eight, reaching fifty six. Our guest
is a little bit older than that. But how to
handle all those changes, It is not easy. It is
so challenging.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
So we have Joan Vassos, who was the Golden Bachelorette,
and it's not.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So much today.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I mean, we'll ask some questions about the Bachelerette, of course,
but I'm really interested in the whole process of dating
in your sixties, of finding love as a widow when
you still you know, there's one thing about you know,
getting divorced that's not easy, but you are almost ready
(08:11):
to move on and to you know, reclaim your life.
I imagine being a widow, it's different. It feels different
because you never fell out of love, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Yeah. I mean, I my mom has gone through divorce
and she was widowed, and I think both you know,
she was actually very open having had been through both
those experiences. I think she, you know, my mom is
a woman who wants to spend her life with someone
and wants to be married, So, you know, I don't know. Yeah,
(08:45):
I'm sure it is very different. I'm sure there are
people that get divorced and they're like, I will never
get married again, you know, or even more, who knows, well,
Joan is going to be able to tell us a
little bit more about what that felt like. But we
have so many questions for her and she is so
a rock star. She is you know. Also, she's so
beautiful really just really in terms of like you know,
(09:08):
we're talking about hair thinning, like she this is a
woman who is on top of whatever her beauty secrets are.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
You know, I was like staring at her hair.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
I do this thing where I stare at people's hair,
like because I'm so entranced by like how it's so
different from person to person, even when off the topic,
like all the ship that's going on with uh Lively
and Justin Baldoni. Every time there's a headline, like I
read the headline and then I stare at her hair.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
It's crazy, Like I can't get over her hair.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Dustin does.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
So I am super excited.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
You're right, she's beautiful, she's elegant, well spoken, and I
can't wait.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
To talk to her.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
So to me too.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Let's bring hi.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
Hello, Hi, how's it going?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
It's going? How is it going for you? Lady?
Speaker 5 (09:59):
It's all the Jay's yes, Jersey j oh yeah, you're
j two.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
You want to be our third a man. We're so
excited to have you here. Thank you for coming.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
I certainly are, thank you for wanting to talk to me.
We were just talking about how beautiful you are. So
we're gonna be superficial for the first part of this
and just because you just are. But also, you know,
we talk a lot about women of a certain age,
and Jackie was just talking about her hair and her
hair thinning as she's noticed that she's getting older. But anyway,
(10:30):
the point is, you are so gorgeous. Just give us
before we even start. We need a couple of your secrets, lady, Like,
what are you doing.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
I'm gonna be totally honest of botox, Yes, good makeup.
I think I finally after a lot of years, in
the last maybe five years, actually paying attention to like
the face regimen. You know. You know, for years I
just put whatever moisturizer was in my cabinet on, and
now I kind of I do the vitamin A and
(10:58):
vitamin C rent and all. So now I'm just trying
to maintain. I know I'm not going to get any better,
but I'm just trying to not look any worse.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Well, so basically it's genetic for you. You just got lucky.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Yes we are chemicals.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, yes, we are a podcast about middle aged women
and all the life issues that we encounter. As middle
aged women, and of course one of those is dating
in middle age and finding love again and what that
feels like, because it's different than when you are younger
and dating.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
There's a lot of there's a lot of other.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Things to consider, you know, your children, your families, your lifestyle.
You know, you're you're used to a certain lifestyle. So
we're going to ask about all of those things. But
first we just want to ask about the show about
the Bachelorette a little bit, of course. So did you
want to go on? And did somebody push you towards it?
How did you get cast on that show?
Speaker 4 (11:56):
I actually self applied, which is not normally certain actual
seems to be the story more for women and then
men all seem to be applied by their daughters. It
seems to be like a thing.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Oh that's so interesting.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Yeah, that was definitely like the story I hear from
almost all men, like they don't self apply generally, their
daughters do it, or some woman friend of theirs does
it for them. But for me and for a lot
of women on my show, like when I was on
Golden Bachelor, we applied ourselves. So I think maybe we
are more conscious of like meeting somebody. Meeting somebody is harder,
(12:31):
and you know, dating apps don't always work out, and
you know, for some reason, maybe it's easier for men,
or maybe they just don't care as much. And so
I felt like in general, the women applied themselves, which
is what I did, but I did it after a
little while. So I had been a widow for about
two years, which was also a little on the soon side.
(12:52):
But I kept thinking like I didn't want to go
through the second half of my life alone, and I
felt like I was six together. I was fifty eight
when I was widowed, and I kept thinking like I
could have a whole nother life. I could have a
whole nother thirty years with somebody like I have with John.
So I had thirty two years with John. So I
kept thinking I could have a bunch of time, But
(13:14):
it could take me some time to find somebody, because
the pool is not very big, and especially if you
want to stay like close to where you live, and
I did because I have my kids and my grandkids
live here and I didn't want to leave. So then
the pool was really small. So I was out to
dinner one with a friend and we were sitting at
a bar at a local restaurant eating dinner, and I
(13:34):
was like, I don't know how I'm ever going to
meet somebody, you know. I kept thinking somebody would introduce
me to this great guy you know that they work with,
or a friend of the families or whatever. That never happened.
Everybody said, oh, you don't want any of the guys
I know or you know, I just don't know anybody.
And then I thought, well, I'll just meet somebody organically.
Like sitting at a bar at a restaurant as opposed
(13:56):
to sitting at a table makes you more open for
people to talk to you. Well, certainly people talk to us.
I was always there like with a girlfriend, but they
were never single. So and then I looked around and
I said, look, everybody at this restaurant is a couple.
And even if I saw, like, let's say, across the bar,
I saw a man, I thought he was handsome, if
he was my age, I would assume he was married.
(14:17):
So I would never like send a drink over or
a wave, or you know, make any any you know, advance,
because I would have assumed that he was already married,
which is very different from the younger generation. They go
everywhere and they think everybody here are single, and it's
very different for when you're older. So then I tried
dating app on one and it was like a job.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
All.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I felt like I had spent all the time on
my phone, you know, being witty and being flirty, and
at the time I would meet the guy and he
wasn't anything that he said he was. They lied about
their ages, they didn't look like their pictures, so that
wasn't like a really positive experience. So I came home
after being out that night with a friend and I
(14:59):
turned on the TV and they were doing a casting
call for this Golden Bachelor. So I filled out the
form because I thought it was like the universe talking
to me.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Yeah, well, I will tell you I was my sister.
So I'm fifty six when my sister is fifty five.
But a few years ago, maybe even like five years ago,
but I remember she wrote an open letter to The
Bachelor of producers and whenever she found their corporate she
was so angry that there was not she couldn't find
herself represented on the Bachelor, and she's like, when are
(15:28):
you going to do a show for women? And it
hies I think there's a lot to do with what
you talked about on the show, which is that feeling
when you get older as a woman that you're invisible,
and she felt really invisible, and you know, so they
never even responded to her. But you know, she wrote
this sort of a I don't know how angry it was,
but it was she was angry, like I don't want
(15:50):
to only watch twenty three year olds, you know, book
for love, Let's watch women are age.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
So what did your.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Family think of it when you were when new or
a cast? Were they happy about it?
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Upset?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
You know, not everybody likes to be thrust into the spotlight.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Very true, and like that was my choice, not theirs,
to be in the spotlight, and they didn't particularly want
to be the spotlight, to be honest, and they also
kind of like me. So when I was cast on
the Golden Bachelor, like it was the first ever of
a golden series and you didn't really know what it
was going to look like, like are we going to
look undignified or were going to look foolish? What are
(16:27):
they going to make us do or what are they
going to ask us to do? Is it going to
be the same stuff? That they asked the younger people
to do or is it going to be something different?
Are they going to you know, tailor it to us.
So I was a little nervous going on the show.
I actually had thoughts of not doing it. It took me,
I came down to about the last day that they
needed to know to say that I was going to
do it, because I was nervous. And then the first
(16:49):
few days I was there, I kind of hung in
the background. I didn't really jump to the front. I
didn't be like, look at me, look at me. I
hung way back because I still was kind of feeling
it out. I didn't know. I didn't know the produces
hardly at all, other than the interaction I had, you know,
prior to going to the show. You have a little
interaction with them, but not a lot. So I didn't
really know. I wasn't confident that their intentions were completely good.
(17:11):
They were making a TV show. I didn't know if
they were really wanting us to find love or they
just wanted to, you know, show old people dating. So
it took me a little while to trust them. And
when I did, I mean it certainly was. I was
completely wrong about that. They were very, very very Their
intentions were very good. Obviously I wouldn't have gone on
the Golden Bacherette, but you know, to take a little while.
(17:32):
And same for my kids. You know, they weren't there,
they didn't meet everybody. So when it finally came to
it actually airing on TV, they all kind of stood
back a little bit and hoping, I didn't, you know,
make myself look foolish.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah, and I'm curious if did you want to be
I mean Jackie and I I I went on to
Jersey Housewives. I was, you know, fifty three. Jackie was
way younger than that, but also forty one. Yeah, forty one,
but at three, you know, it what an adventure and
as I know it has been for you as well.
But did you want to be on TV? Was it?
(18:07):
Are you somebody that had always Oh? Well, I mean
I don't want to speak for Jackie, but for me,
I had kind of dreams of always being one. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
I kind of wanted to see how it felt to
be famous.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Yeah, yeah, not really so I was up till being
on the show. I was kind of a shy person.
I was a computer science major in college. I wrote
code for a living, so I wasn't like an out there.
I had a huge phobia of being on stage, which
you saw on The Golden Bachelor when I had to
do the talent show, I was terrified getting up there.
(18:41):
So and it took me a little while to come
into like like where I am today with this whole thing,
which I'm very comfortable with it. But I wasn't a
person seeking like fame and wasn't wasn't dying to be
on TV. I just didn't see another way of doing this.
So like if if I was stalled out on a
dating app and meeting somebody organically, and I still wanted
(19:02):
to meet somebody, like I had to do something different,
and that just is what popped in on my TV
that night. So I did it. But it was uncomfortable
writing over in the limo the first night getting out,
you know at a Golden Bachelor, I was terrified. I
almost like quit while I was on When I was
(19:23):
on a limo, Wow, and I was the last person
out of the limo. So of the twenty two people,
I was number twenty two. So I had this entire
day and evening of this danks building up the whole day.
I didn't get out of a lim until like eleven
o'clock at night. I was by the time I got
out of there, I could hardly speak. So I was
definitely not unnatural and it was definitely not dying to
(19:44):
be able to.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
D And you knew nothing about him, there was no
nobody had given you any information at all.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
She did. So he got introduced on I think Good
Morning America like a mole. Yeah, so he had been introduced,
so we all knew a little, but he knew nothing
about us. He'd never you know, names don't get released
so much later till actually we finish all the taping
is when they finally, you know, to say who we
all are. But nope, Yeah, so I didn't know who
he was and a little bit about.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Him, Joan, do you feel like in a comparison of
the two shows, so first you were part of a
group of twenty two women on the batch the Golden Bachelor,
and then you were the Golden Bachelorette with a group
of around the same number of men, do you feel
(20:30):
like aging men and aging women were treated differently like
the women that were in the first round the twenty
two women, do you feel like there was a sense
of well, the men are sexy, the women are just aging.
I know you weren't treated like that on the show,
but in social media, do you do you get what
I'm asking?
Speaker 4 (20:48):
I definitely do. And now that you've mentioned it, like
I've had that feeling and you verbalized it really well,
because you do, like you know, they want to show
the women as like they're active, and they are, you know,
they're vibrant still. But our season, so the twenty two
women skewed much older than the men from my Golden
Bacherette season. So the Golden Bachelor, he was seventy when
(21:11):
he you know, when our showed air, I was the
youngest person on there. I was sixty, and there were
other sixty year olds. But then there were also people
in well into their seventies, So the oldest person was
seventy five. Sundra was seventy five. So they skewed a
lot older and we acted a little older, or they
didn't expect us to be as you know, active or
as vibrant the men, I felt like they depicted as
(21:35):
like In fact, they didn't even talk about most of
the women's professions very much, or didn't talk about like
their careers or you know, even talk about how we
raised our families. Partially because it was a much shorter season.
There was only four weeks of the Golden Boucher and
my season was seven half weeks, so you got a
lot more opportunity to meet them men. But I did
(21:56):
feel like the men they wanted to show them as
being really fun, like as having sense of humor and
like walking around the mansion and.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
By the way, and yeah, I mean I think happened.
I don't really think about it then, but that was
part of what was besides, of course, the fact that
it was you and that was, you know, amazing in
and of itself. But the men were so adorable and
they were so connected and you're right, even though I
felt like they were more connecting I'm the Bachelor and
(22:25):
the Golden Bachelor, but it definitely was different, and I
didn't like, it's funny just to hear you say that
out loud. I didn't really think it through, but that's interesting.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
But they had more time to you know, introduce the
man and get you allow you to get to know
them more, which I think helped immensely. People like really
connected with the men and they really felt like their
stories because they got to know them a little better.
That wasn't true with the women. And the women we've
all talked about this. We have a big group chat.
There's all twenty two of us are on a group chat,
(22:54):
and once in a while, yeah, and everyone we have
an opportunity to see, you know, a chunk of each
other out of time and we have that conversation. We said,
you know that it was a little different because we
there was just so limited time. So there was only
so much time. And also the episodes weren't only an
hour long. The first like four episodes of The Golden
(23:14):
Vetch Threat were an hour and a half or two.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Hours, and that was a half? Was it that on
a technicality?
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Why did it happen like that?
Speaker 4 (23:21):
I think it's because they weren't really sure that the
show was going to be successful, so they weren't investing
as much in it. Like they didn't travel as much.
They didn't they didn't do a lot. They it just
wasn't as long.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, you left early from the first season or a
family emergency. Did you let the producers know that you
wanted to come back in some capacity or how did
they know that you were open to it.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
So when I was leaving, it was proposed to me.
They said, you know a lot of times in these situations,
I guess this has happened before. You know, people try
to come back, or we liked for you to have
to come back, you to be able to come back.
So I said, I was open to it. I just
had to see how things kind of went and how
home and so I was in contact with them a
lot between the time that I left and the time
(24:06):
when it would have been like logical for me to come back,
which was I left on a Thursday. Maybe I could
get things better by that next Monday, which I wasn't
able to. But then there was another chunk of time.
So at that point, since it was such a quick season,
they were already starting to go on hometowns. So as
Gary was on hometowns, I was still in contact with
(24:27):
the producers to see if maybe I could come back
after that. At that point, he had connected with somebody.
Obviously it was with a tree seth, but he had
connected and maybe more, but he connected with somebody, and
we kind of collectively decided that it wouldn't be good
for me to come back at this point.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Did you have that feeling when you left, Like, I
don't know, I only know what I saw, but what
you were attached to Gary in that way? Did you
have that sort of heartbreaking feeling or because I look
at you now with chalk and I can't imagine if
it had been you and Gart you just seemed I
see it, you know, And I don't know if I
even saw it then it was But how how hard
(25:06):
was that to separate forget from the show, but from
him from.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
Him personally, So it kind of was like a revelation moment.
Up until that point, it had been about at this point,
about two and a half years since John had passed away,
and I had never had any strong feelings about another man.
I'd gone on many dates, none of them great, and
he never had a feeling. I never had the idea that, Okay,
(25:30):
I actually see myself moving on. I was just kind
of going through the motions with those other dates. So
when I had that date with Geary that night, first
of all, like it felt very special because I won
this talent competition, which was crazy, and it was just
because I think I wrote this heartfelt poem and then
I got up there. I had the courageing up there
(25:51):
and actually say it, and I think he just you know,
took pity on me a little bit, but I felt
that very flattered that yeah, and I felt very flattered
that we picked me, So that kind of already made
the date like a little more special. And then we
really had great conversations because he was really good at that.
He understood that, you know, the time that he gets
to spend with each person is really important, and you
(26:11):
have to have kind of important conversations. You can't just
talk about you know, you know what your dog's name,
or we're like, you know, what do you like to
eat for dinner or whatever. You kind of move on,
like to family, you know, to your family, and to
like your dreams and what you look your future is
going to look like and things like that. So we
had these important conversations, and for the first time I
saw myself like in as a couple, and even if
(26:34):
it wasn't with him, I started realizing that I was
going to be able to do that, like my heart
was going to be able to get there, because up
until then, my head was the only part that was there.
I knew I wanted it, but my heart hadn't followed yet.
And at that point my heart followed, and I don't
know if it was with him at the time. You know,
it was like it just felt good, And when I
said goodbye the next morning, it was painful. It really was.
(26:54):
I felt like we had had a connection. You know,
at this point, it's like a really good friendship. We
are a really good friend still, you say in much Yeah, yeah,
we stay in touch. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
I can't help but think that he wanted you, he
wanted to give it a try after him and Teresa
broke up. I'm guessing I'm not going to comment. If
I were him, I would have wanted to give it
a try. Yeah, okay, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
So I know a lot of people who are getting divorced.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
I feel like, at my age, I'm almost fifty, a
lot of marriages are dropping like flies around me and
I and some of the people in the divorce mindset
like you're looking for a clean slate. It's definitely hard,
but like you're ready to try again and ready to
have love again. I imagine it might be a little bit
different when you lose someone that you're still in love with,
so dating after becoming a widow might feel different. Did
(27:40):
you have any kind of guilt or any kind of
was it hard to allow yourself to be in love again?
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Yeah, So, like, great question, because I didn't realize I
had that guilt until I started having feelings for Chalk,
So I thought like every thing was good. My heart
and my head had now finally figured out that they
wanted the same thing, and that I was moving forward
and I'm here now, I'm the Golden Bachelorette. I'm totally committed.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
I went on the show like feeling like I was
really really ready. And first, you know, a couple of
weeks all good, you know, cruising along, and then I
started feeling this terrible guilt, and I was like how
And I felt like I was being not genuine to
the man. I thought that I was now not being
honest to them because suddenly I felt like I wasn't ready,
(28:33):
like I wasn't ready for a relationship because I realized
I was still and would always be in love with John,
and I didn't know how to reconcile that. So I
almost quit.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
So I had a conversation, really, I know you were
you almost quit?
Speaker 3 (28:48):
How far were you into it when you.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Felt like that week three?
Speaker 3 (28:52):
And they would must have been freak. Do you tell
the producers they must have freaked out?
Speaker 4 (28:56):
I did not.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
I talked to the psychiatry and quit our four times
in the first season. Exactly, you go, girl, I talked
to the psychiatrist.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
So I first of all, I was really tired. So
we'd been filming for about three weeks, and I had
gone on a bunch of dates, and you know, it's
all really emotional, and you also are getting very tired.
You know, you're not sleeping in the regular place or
dating a lot of minute. It's a lot of work.
And I was just getting really really tired at this point,
like it all kind of hit one day, and so
(29:30):
I asked to speak to the psychiatrists. There's two of
them that's always available on set with the contestants, and
then they are also available to the you know, the
main So they came into my room and I was like,
I don't know if I can keep doing this. I
still a lot of John, like like how do you
do this? And they go, well, why do you think
you have to not be in love with John? And
I go, because, how do you, like, these are men,
(29:52):
they expect me to fall in love with them. You
know one of them does. And they said, well you
can still do that. They said, picture it like this,
picture that John is a balloon in this hand and
this other person is a balloon in this hand, and
you don't have to let go of this one to
hold onto this one, that there was room for both
of them in your heart. And it was like the
free pass I needed, Like that's all I needed to
(30:13):
say to me. I was like, oh, so I don't
have to be another job because I don't think I
can ever not be in love with them. And they said, no,
you're fine, that that doesn't have to happen, and it
tried to would be weird if it did.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
I love that you have discussions with John when he
was sick.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Yeah, well I didn't want to because I was in denial,
the total denial that he was going to die. In fact,
I thought he was the one person that survives pancreatic
cancer and I was just being naive and I just
wasn't watching what was happening around me. He had gone
from being about two hundred and twenty pounds to one
hundred and twenty pounds and he was just wasting away
before my eyes. And he knew he was dying, but
(30:50):
I just wasn't going to accept it. I was going
to talk about it. I was taking him to appointments
and we were tied to empty Anderson to get him
cared down, you know, in Texas, and we were doing
everything we do to help him, you know, survive this.
But one day he was really sick and he was
laying on the sofa and he was sleeping on and
off all day and he called me over and he's like,
(31:10):
sit down next to me, pats right next to him,
and he takes my hand and he said, you were
the best wife ever and we had a great life together.
And I don't want you to be alone. I want
you to find somebody when I'm gone. And I said,
I am not having this conversation with you. I said,
you are not going anywhere. And I was bad that
he was saying that to me, and I was like,
(31:32):
I was just ignoring it. But I and I'd have
forgot about that conversation for a little while, and it
came back to me one day when I was so
really really in the morning, you know, stage, and I
remember him saying that, and I was like, what a
gift that was that I didn't know he was given
me such a gift, because I'm not sure if I
(31:53):
could have done this whole thing if he hadn't given
me that gift. But he did, and I really really
really like leaned on that a lot as I was
moving through this whole thing, you know, as I was
on the show and falling in love.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
So that's really yeah, I'm like crying.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Think if it was you, if it was God forbid you.
I mean, you think about the person that you think
about them alone, and it's the hard you don't want
them alone.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I want that No, especially from the marriage after you
and Chock fell in love and got engaged.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
How did you hide that relationship? Did they give you
like pentometers for what you were allowed to do?
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Yeah, they pretty much say you cannot tell anybody, you know,
because we want and we didn't want to tell anybody.
We want, like we want everybody to watch the show obviously,
so it leaks out, you know, that kind of spoils
the ending. So we certainly were really careful about who
we told to. Obviously, our families knew, and I had
a couple of close friends. But after that, you don't
tell anybody but Batcher's really really good about making sure
(32:58):
you have time to you know, spend time together because
you know you still you've been you know, living this
kind of you know, life in a bubble when you're filming,
and so it's kind of a false reality. So and
even though you know until you actually get announced in
at the finale, you're still living in a little bit
of fostering reality. They give you time away from cameras.
(33:20):
So we got they call them happy couple of visits,
and we got five of them, and so.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
They my husband loves happy couple visits, so that's what
you call them.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
Got it. So they would they close to La and
they put you up in like an airbnb for four
or five days at a time. You can't lead. You
go into disguise. You find a different airports and they
just put you up in a house and you and
you get to know each other. So they bring you groceries,
you can rent movies. I had no idea. It's so fun.
(33:55):
It's so vacation like every other week. It's so fun.
And we had like a pool, we had a tennis
ware one of the places we played tennis, We did puzzles,
we had It was.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Weird to transition from having so much chaos to just
you or I would have been nervous, just like, now,
what is this going to look like? Right?
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Is it going to trans the first happy couple visit
I was super nervous about. So we hadn't So the
first one didn't happen until September, and we had gotten
engaged in early August and we had a whole month
of just kind of talking on the phone. So that
first day he got to did I get to the house. Oh,
I got to the house first, and he came about
a couple hours later, and I was so nervous.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
I'm like, oh my god, and you say it, yeah,
I was so gary it was.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
So I had a bottle of wine open already, and
he pulls up stampole in the driveway in his car.
And all these places have gates, so you like, when
you get out, nobody can see who's getting out whatever,
So they closed the gate and then he gets out
of the car and I meet him at the door
and I have a glass of wine for him. I
have my glass of wine, and it's like early evening
and we immediately were back to where we were before.
(35:05):
So that mum, it was like nothing. It was like
we were right back and we had a great dinner
and we talked. We left and we started watching our
Netflix series and like everything was perfect.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
And it must have felt so good to be able
to finally tell the world and get back out there
and be.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Open about and everything.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
It was so good.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
I know that on our show social media can sometimes
be really really tough on.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
You, so always be I want to know how it's.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Been, not only for you in terms of being an
aging woman, Like we both get a lot of comments
about our looks as aging women, but I want to
know about that part, but also protecting Chalk from you know,
you chose him out of the twenty two I assume
meant and and you know you really can't protect him,
(36:08):
this person that you love now from what comes what
comes at him because you chose him. And I know
that's really hard. I've dealt with that on our show
as well. So how has the social media been for you?
How do you handle it?
Speaker 4 (36:23):
So social media? The day I got announced was at
these things called the Upfronts in New York City, and
sitting next to me was Lisa vander Pump and she says,
I have a piece of advice for you. She said,
do not listen to social media. She said, it will
destroy you. She said. It took me years to take
my own advice. She use and I'm so much happier now.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Do you know how she was? By the way, did
you watch Housewives? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (36:49):
Exactly. Oh my gosh, yeah, I love listening. I love
she's still cool. I want to be here when I
grow Yeah, so that was like great advice excefre I
didn't really listen to it because I was like, oh, yeah, yeah,
you're like really popular, you have a lot of people
that know you. I'm not going to be that person.
But sure enough, like the minute I came off the show,
(37:09):
as the show aired, So when you're first the kind
of cast, like a lot of people don't have opinions
about it. I didn't get a lot of a lot
of responses to things, but eventually once the show started airing,
that's when all the mean people kind of came out.
So if I had one hundred comments on a post
or something, ninety five would be really nice. Five would
(37:32):
be awful. And the awful ones are so much meaner
than the nice ones that those.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Are, and they're the ones you're a member to remember.
Speaker 4 (37:39):
That word for a word, and like why you know,
and saying things like you treated the men so poorly
and you didn't give them a chance to talk, and
you know how ugly I am and why do you
use much chore? And you can't move your lip and
all this like mean stuff. So and you your hair
etenngines are terrible and like they attack you like the
way you look, they tech you, the way you act,
they look. They never really brought my family into it,
(38:02):
So if they brought my family into it, I would
have been like mama bear and I would have like,
I don't know what I would have done. But they
were really nice. Chalk didn't get attacked until about mid season,
when he started looking a bit like a villain, although
nobody really on my season looked like a villain, but
he was becoming, you know, like we had a kind
(38:23):
of a thing by mid season, and we were spending
a lot more time with each other, and I think
some of the men were like, hey, give us a chance.
So he kind of looked like maybe he was being
a little possessive. That's a lot of that has to
do with editing also, as you probably know, so he
kind of started getting an attack then, and I felt
bad about that because although he signed up to the
(38:45):
show just like I did, so unlike your families, because
you were in the Housewives, they didn't sign up for it,
and so you probably felt a little more protective. I
knew that he knew what he was getting into and
that we all signed up for this, and I knew
in the end, as a season progresses, he is going
to be you end up looking like a really good guy,
like the guy he really is. But there were just
some you know, some editing and that happened that made
(39:07):
him look not you know, maybe gave him a bad
edit at points best person.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
I'm sorry, I mean to interrupt. You good to being
younger and having to handle that like I think.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Yeah, you know, just like just like you.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
I at the beginning and then I only did two
seasons of Jersey Housewives, but the second season I certainly
got a lot more the negative comments than I did
the first season. But again, I started I was fifty three.
I'm fifty six now, and I think that if I
had been younger, like most women are when they start
out on the Housewives, I think I would have had
(39:41):
a much harder time. You'd never want to hear nasty
things about yourself, but at a certain age, and I
think that's why I love the Golden bats and the
Golden baths er at so much. You are. One great
thing about aging is you know who you are, and
you've been through stuff. You've been through real stuff, and
in my mind, you have even more to offer the
(40:03):
world in terms of being on television. I'm a little
you know, I'm a little biased in this area, but
I think that people have have more almost sometimes to offer.
But you know, dealing with it when you're twenty something
or even early thirties and it's I can't even imagine.
(40:23):
You have to have a very strong sense of self
to be able to handle all of that.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
Totally agree with you.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Did any of the social comments make you feel like, well,
maybe I should do this, or maybe I should do
this to fix you know what they were talking about.
I think you're stunning, imperfect. But you know, I got
off my show and I was like, oh God, I
need a nose job and a facelift and hair translants
and you know, yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
All those things. I think all of those I like,
I stand in my my mirror and I go like
this and the gool I could look a lot better.
And you know, I'm the same. And like you said,
for a young person, like how destroying that would be,
Like I like, I can accept it, like my aging Okay,
so this is what I'm going to like, I'm going to,
you know, fight this as hard as I can, but eventually,
you know it's going to end. When you're young and
(41:07):
you're feeling like that, you don't you know, I can
do this gracefully. I feel like when you're young, you don't.
You don't give yourself that kind of break. You're like,
oh my god, this looks like I got to do
something a lot of yours. I got a live bit
the space or whatever with this body I can't imagine,
Which is why I feel like social media is so
damaging to think about a thirteen or fourteen year old.
(41:28):
I know, and they're not on TV. They're just going
to school every day and they're getting an attacked. So like
when we put ourselves on TV, we know what we're
signing up for, and we can choose to look at
the stuff or not choose look at the stuff, and
you know, we could just go off the show. These
kids are just out there living. They're just going to
school every day and they're just trying to make friends
and they're trying to figure out who they are in
(41:49):
the world. And they are not like prepared for it
like we are, and they don't they're signing up for this.
It's just being the rest of them.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Did you watch The Bachelor and The Bachelor at the
you did? You did?
Speaker 4 (42:03):
Yeah? And I do see that that mean girl behavior
is like so disappointing. And I feel like so I
feel like many years ago when The Bachelor started, that
wasn't part of it. People were nice to each other,
and it gradually over the years became more of a problem.
And it came to the problem with the first with
(42:23):
the girls and then with the guys, and that happened
over several seasons, and I think the housewife set, yeah,
kind of housewife And I feel like it needs a reset,
and I don't know how to make that happen. I
was hoping that maybe Golden give it a little reset,
people would start looking at it so it can look
like this, but it never hasn't gotten one. It just
it almost escalates every year or every scene.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
That's why everyone loved Golden Bachelor and bats Rex. It
was not like that. I mean there were some little
petty funny things on the Bachelor and then the Bachelorette.
I just saw these men. It was, it was, and
it was it was more fun to watch, at least
that's how I feel about it than than watching you know,
the nastiness.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
So now you're engaged, you're in love with chop and
then comes in like.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Public scrutiny of your relationship. Has that affected you, guys?
Speaker 4 (43:14):
Yeah, I look at like this. I look at the
kind of publications every day to see like what's out.
And it's funny it changes from day to day. Like
I'll get screen rant and like one day it'll say, oh,
they're solid and they're good, they're gonna get married, and
the next day the stay they're on the road to
separating and they're not together anymore. And whatever. By the way,
I'm here in Maryland. Chuck is right in the other room.
(43:35):
He's working, and it is working. It's fine. But like
they just take little hints from stupid things, you know,
Like we were together on my birthday. Well we've seen
each other the week before, we've seen each other the
week after. Just he needed to work. I thinks I
needed to do. You know, I'm sixty two, Like my
birthday isn't like a year old birthdays. You know you're
gonna be together that day. So you know, they took
(43:57):
that and ran with it. So, you know, the public
scrutiny is ridiculous and it's it's not true. And we
do feel a little bit of an obligation to post
now together or whenever we're together, just to validate that
we are still together. But I know it's you know,
people invested in this journey and so to leave them
at the curb and say we're not going to you know,
(44:19):
show you how we're doing, is not the right thing
to do. But for you, for like the you know,
the publications, to assume that we're not good because we're
not posting every other day is ridiculous. We're just not
together every other day. We're together like every other week
or every three weeks, and we're but we're just because
we're not posting doesn't mean we're not together.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Love right, No, I love it.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I love that you guys seem very good at not
letting it affect your relationship and what you know is real.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Yeah, what are you yourself doing now with all of this?
I mean everyone always asks Jackie and I and not
just us, but anybody that's been on reality TV, like,
now you have this platform, where do you see this
going from here? And I don't mean in terms of
your relationship, I mean just in terms of do you
you know, has this opened up doors for you? Do
you want it to open doors for you? Do you
want this to translate into other potentially career opportunities?
Speaker 4 (45:10):
Yeah? I I never expected this, so I hadn't put
any thought into any of this until after the kind
of the season ended and I thought, well, you know there.
You know, we always asked to do a lot of interviews,
and people want to hear this story and it's indifferent
than a younger dating story. And that was kind of
part of my goal when I went on the show,
(45:30):
was to not like I knew it was about me
finding love, but I felt like there were all these
other people that were my age and maybe a little
younger and a little older, but in the same weird
boat of finding themselves being single at this you know,
kind of second half of their life, and I wanted
to represent that whole group, not it just be about me,
but it'd be about all these people and get people
(45:51):
hope and like show that it's possible and it could
be fun, it could be dignified, and you shouldn't feel
guilty and all those things, all those feelies that I
was feeling like, I just like put them right out
so I could, you know, actually maybe like be an
example to people that are thinking about doing it. So
I'd love to continue that, like, you know, whatever that
(46:13):
looks like, if it's a podcast or if it's TV,
or if it's a book, or if it's none of
those things, it is what it is. I got, honestly
exactly what I wanted from this. I found my fiance.
I found the second level of my life. So if
nothing comes of it, I got exactly why I went
on the show. But if something, you know, more comes
of it, I you know, I would welcome the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Yeah, I love it. Do you think you guys have
got married? I know everyone asked that, but yeah, yeah, you.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Know, when I went on the show, I was not
actually looking necessary to get married. I don't feel like
I don't have the biological clock and I having kids.
You know, we're not e merging. We're just I didn't
see a need to get married, and I actually didn't
even see a need to get engaged. I said when
I went on the show, I wanted to find a
(46:59):
person that I wanted to explore being together with, but
not necessarily needing to get engaged, and maybe that would
have been too quick. I figured out as I was
going through this that Chuck and I matched up in
like pretty amazing ways, and I felt like I really
knew him, So getting engaged didn't feel weird, even though
it was really really quick, And getting married now doesn't
(47:21):
feel weird either, Like I you know, I was married
for thirty two years and I loved it, and so like,
why would I not want to get married, Like, what's
the point of not getting married?
Speaker 2 (47:31):
It's right show approached you about doing it on TV.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
They have not yet.
Speaker 4 (47:38):
No, No, I think that well. And I also think
that we all kind of maybe learned a lesson from
Gary and Teresa that maybe that was too quick and
they probably don't want to make that mistake again. And
I've certainly not in any rush to get married. I
am actually really happy right now, just not have anything
to do. You know, he and I were doing some
(47:59):
press stop to go and Drew Barrymore on Thursday. We
need to do things. Yeah, so we get to do
really fun things. We're gonna go to a gulf turned
mountain in La I mean out in Carmel. iHeart Radio
is treating us, and so we get to do some
really really fun things. Like planning a wedding right now
seems like it would be like a lot of work.
(48:19):
So I'm just gonna we're just have fun right now,
and I will plan a wedding and we will get
married and it will be for the world to see
if they want to see it, or it'll just be
our private little thing with their families. However it works out,
we will get married. But I'm just sent sure man.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
And are you guys still getting a place together in
New York?
Speaker 4 (48:38):
We were there last week and extra going tomorrow again.
We keep looking. The inventory is pretty low and it'll
apparently loosen up some in the spring. So okay, So.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
We're you're settled in.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Me and Jen are only like fifteen minutes away. We're
right over the border in Jersey, so we'll come in.
We'll sit at a bar with you and have dinner. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (48:56):
I would love sec very friends.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
I have your friends. Thank you, Okay, friends, this is
really really fun.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
Anything else you would want people to know about you
or your experience or chalk.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
So I probably should like finish up with the family.
Ended up actually loving this for me and actually for them,
and they love Chalk. And my grandkids. My granddaughter who's
only fourteen months old, says, where's Chalk, word Chalk wherever?
She's like, We're so cute. I know. And last time
(49:33):
Chalk was leaving my grandson and said, I don't want
that guy to go. So everybody loves chalk. And the
families are all good. His kids are amazing. They came
and spent Thanksgiving here and I got to spend New
Year's Eve with his son in Kansas, so all is good.
All is good to families.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
I think that what I love about this the most
is that you really did do what Jackie and I
talk about all the time, which is, you know, bring
not only visibility to women and men of a certain age,
so right, so that feeling of being invisible, to really
sort of challenge that, but also to show that after
(50:11):
a certain age you're not done. You are and not
just not done with life, You're not done with feeling
sexy or wanting to connect or feel good about yourself,
like you know, the idea that sort of. I think
there's so much agism in our world and in our country,
and I absolutely love that the folks at the Bachelor,
(50:35):
you know, knew that this was important. I mean, I
think there are lots of areas that they could even
expand it into whatever. I won't go off on a tangent,
but I think that it's such a great thing that
I think women and men of all ages want to
watch you. I want to watch these guys. I want
to watch these gals. You know. It's like and see
and still get that feeling of excitement watching two people
(50:58):
of a certain age connect in that way. It's such
a breakthrough and.
Speaker 4 (51:02):
It's not gross, so I know, so like people would
be like.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
Oh, it's not gross, exactly.
Speaker 4 (51:08):
Gross, Like it doesn't gross if you kiss somebody. Yeah,
and it's and it's not a key seeing like the
guys in mina bathing suits, so you know, it doesn't
have to be a gross thing like the stereotypes. It's
time they're broken. We're not. We are way different.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Amen's sister, and I feel like it's chipping. I feel
like we're chipping away at that.
Speaker 4 (51:29):
You know, I agree with you, Yeah, but I'd.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Like to see the next one be more inclusive in
terms of sizes. That always kind of bugged me with
The Bachelor, not necessarily the Golden Bachelor, but like I
was always like, you know, there there were cookie cutter.
It looked very cookie cutter to me in terms of
body size.
Speaker 4 (51:46):
Always kind of because anyway said that to me. Someone
said that to me, I'm golden. They said, why is
everybody size two and wealthy? And I'm like, you have
no I look back at her. I usually don't answer those,
I just let go, and I would at this girl.
I said, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Look at the body types on on Golden Baucher. Not
everybody was spice too. No, not everybody did bo talks.
(52:10):
Not everybody was wealthy. I said, you have no idea
the backgrounds of these women. I mean, we had teachers there,
we had women who didn't work, we'd stayed at home moms,
We had a fitness instructor, wealthy women. We were wealthy
sized to women carried burken bags. It's not true.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Yeah. More I mean with the Bachelor, not the Golden
one that just all these everybody is just has this
rock and body and they're always in bikinis and that's fine,
and I love it too, and I love watching and
you know, it's let's say it's aspirational. But I would
love to see I don't know, some more different bodily
agreed than Yeah.
Speaker 4 (52:45):
I totally agree. They'd have one on GEN season, a
guy on Gen season that everybody fell in love with.
He was like maybe a little heavier, he was just
he was absolutely adorable and he was real popular. But
she let him go kind of early in the journey,
which I felt bad because he was like a fan favorite.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
Right right, Yeah, just and more women like that. But anyway, sorry,
I'm getting off on a little bit.
Speaker 4 (53:09):
Yes, yes, we could talk all day about what they
should do.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Joan, thank you so much for coming. We love talking to.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
You and this was really inspirational and and wishing you
and talk you know, just a lifetime of happiness together.
Speaker 4 (53:25):
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, and
I look forward to our dinner in New York City.
Speaker 3 (53:30):
The six of us, maybe just the three of us,
I don't know. We'll decide we'll figure it out.
Speaker 4 (53:34):
The more than Marrier. Thank you so much talking to you.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
Be welcome, amazing. I'm in love with her. That was amazing.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
You know, I do feel like she is so beautiful,
and I don't know, there's something that always I just
I want them. I'm hoping that they'll do not even
a Golden Bachelor brea because I think they are inclusive,
but like a Bachelor where not everyone is so gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Well, I mean, you can still be gorgeous and look different,
but I don't I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
But it wasn't like that for the Golden Bachelor or Bachelor.
They had people of all different shapes and sizes, which
I love right More like on the.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Batch, which she is I love. I love what she said.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
About the balloon, like holding the balloon in each hand.
That makes so much sense. And you know that I
imagine it must be so hard. I lost two family
members to pancreatic cancer. One was my mother's mother, and like,
it's such a painful, with painful journey. I mean, it
doesn't feel quick when you're going through it, but it's
(54:37):
you just watch someone go so quickly, and I can't
imagine how hard that would be. So I'm so I'm
so happy that she feels like she has permission from
from her husband, from the universe to try again and
to be in love again, you know, cause you get
one more complicated like when you have young kids, right,
(54:58):
Like I picture God forbid, but well there are people
there and they know they're dying, and then you have
to picture your partner with someone else. And then you
picture your kids with another parent who's getting very morbid
very quickly. But it's all very very complicated.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
Life, and it's part of getting older.
Speaker 3 (55:17):
But you'd want your kids also to have another loving parent, right,
You'd want.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
Your kids also want their parents to be happy.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
You know.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
It's not something you realize when you are a child.
But now that I'm older, I mean my parents they're
still married. They haven't lived together in twenty five years.
But when I was a kid, they fought all the time,
and as much as I never wanted them to separate,
I wished that they were happier.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
You know, And they're happy now.
Speaker 1 (55:44):
They're actually I think happily more happily married now than
they were when I was younger.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Maybe that's the answer. He's just living separately exactly.
Speaker 1 (55:53):
You haven't get the hell out, Okay, right, so this
was fabulous. I missed your face. I haven't seen you
in a little bit. I know, plan something when we
get off of here, but this was great. She was
a perfect guest and I loved it me too. Thanks you, guys,
Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
Thanks guys, see you next time.
Speaker 3 (56:10):
Bye.
Hosts And Creators
Jackie Goldschneider
Jennifer Fessler
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com