Taylor Frankie Paul was welcomed to Bachelor Nation by a lot of familiar faces.
Last month, Joan, 62, was joined by several former Bachelorettes including Rachel Lindsay, Trista Sutter, Hannah Brown, Kaitlyn Bristowe, Becca Kufrin, Katie Thurston, Rachel Recchia, DeAnna Pappas, Ali Fedotowsky, Andi Dorfman, Charity Lawson, Tayshia Adams, Desiree Hartsock, JoJo Fletcher, Emily Maynard and Ashley Hebert for a reunion seemingly filmed for the upcoming season 22 of The Bachelorette, which premieres in March and stars Taylor, 31.
“It was crazy,” Joan told Us Weekly during a recent interview with fiancé Chock Chapple, pegged to their partnership with Inspire. “It was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I feel like I know them, like, I’ve watched all their seasons, but never met so many of them in person. I’m hopeful for Taylor. She is a genuinely nice human who is unapologetically herself.”
With Taylor wrapping filming earlier this month, she has been officially added to the infamous Bachelorette group chat too.
“I remember I was leaving Tahiti [after filming my season], I was in a layover in California, and I was sitting there and started getting all these texts on my phone, saying ‘Welcome, Joan. This is so and so from season whatever,’” Joan recalled, telling Us that the group chat is still active. “It centers around life events, like, somebody’s pregnant, somebody’s getting married, ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ — just what you send to your close friends. You have this group of people that have done this weird thing that you’ve done. It’s a unique group.”
Joan Vassos and Chock Chapple are still going strong one year after getting engaged on The Golden Bachelorette — but that doesn’t mean they don’t feel a little pressure when it comes to expectations from Bachelor Nation. “I do feel that way — if something happened with us, which nothing is going to happen, but […]
While chatting with Joan and Chock, there were other Bachelor Nation-related headlines we inquired about — including the future of the Golden franchise after Mel Owens’ season 2 brought in lackluster ratings.
“Golden is hard. From what I understand, it’s hard to find men,” Joan said. “So there’s a lot of us women out here that are in our 60s and 70s that are looking for companionship and our person, and they have a much harder time finding men. I think Mel on paper was great. I think the cameras were hard for him, and so I want to give him grace and say, ‘It’s not for everybody. It’s hard.’ Sometimes people never get comfortable. And maybe that was him. I think that he and Peg look like a great couple, and I keep my fingers crossed, and I hope they work out.”
Joan believes the franchise “may be taking a little different direction,” starting with the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star.
“Taylor Frankie Paul is not the wholesome girl that they normally cast,” she said. “So I think maybe they’ll do something different with Golden. Maybe they’ll find somebody more in the limelight.”
The first season of the senior show resulted in a three-month marriage of Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist. Their breakup recently made headlines again when Gerry wrote a book about their relationship, which prompted a back and forth between the exes in the media.
“I’m sad by the whole thing,” Joan said. “Their breakup wasn’t perfect, but it had taken a backseat, you know, was not in the news anymore, and that just brought it all back up to the surface.”
One story told by Teresa included how Gerry once joked about hiding her body in a shed during a trip to his native Iowa.
Joan Vassos and Gerry Turner have continued to stay in contact after she left his season of The Golden Bachelor. “We are really good friends still,” Vassos, 62, said on the Wednesday, January 22, episode of the “Two Jersey Js” podcast. “We stay in touch.” Vassos exited the show, which aired in 2023, to take […]
“Conversations like, ‘That’s where I put you if I murdered you.’ That was just funny. I think it was said in jest, and then it just got blown out. I’m just sad by the whole thing. Honestly, I feel like we should be more dignified and at our age, we shouldn’t be doing this to each other, and I’m sorry that it went down that [way].”
Joan and Chock, meanwhile, have been engaged since 2024, but told Us that they have no plans to tie the knot just yet. Currently, they are celebrating the holidays in New York City, which is when Chock stopped by to show off his Inspire Sleep Remote, a handheld device to turn his Inspire implant on/off.
“I was suffering from sleep apnea, and I’ve successfully had the implant put in, you have so much more energy when you use Inspire sleep therapy,” he said. “It just really changes your life. And as you get older — a lot of us don’t sleep eight hours a day — but you get a good six to seven hours. You don’t get interrupted sleep.”
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