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