For those who watched the first season of “The Golden Bachelor” on ABC, it was easy to immediately become a fan of all 22 of the senior women competing for Gerry Turner’s affections.
They were lively, confident and warm — people with interesting stories and lessons to share. None was more sweet and kind than Joan Vassos, the 61-year-old Maryland grandmother who last week was named the star of the inaugural series “The Golden Bachelorette.”
The show doesn’t premiere until this fall — which means it’s probably already being filmed and Vassos is probably on her way to finding true love. ABC has not released a start date for the series, which will air Wednesdays at 8 p.m. and the next day on streaming service Hulu.
So until then, here are five things to know about “The Golden Bachelorette.”
She’s a Terp
Vassos, a resident of Rockville, graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in computer science, according to her LinkedIn profile. (You don’t need to know when — ask your own grandmother about her days at College Park.) She now works as a school administrator in alumni relations for Landon School in Bethesda.
Her kids come first
She has four kids — two sons and two daughters — and when one of her daughter’s postpartum health concerns forced Vassos to depart “The Golden Bachelor” earlier than expected, she wrote on social media: “I traded the mansion for motherhood. … Family comes first, period. Once a mother, always a mother. I’ll always choose my kids first.”
She gets stage fright
On one of “The Golden Bachelor” episodes, Vassos competed in a talent show with the other women. She became very nervous and insisted she had no talent to perform and was too afraid to be onstage. In the end, Vassos won the competition by reading a poem she had written titled “I Just Hope I Don’t Vomit on Your Shoes.”
She makes the best chicken soup
Vassos is particularly proud of her chicken soup that her 90-something mother calls “the best,” she said on Instagram, where she posted a video of her making the soup. Here’s her recipe: 6 carrots, 6 stalks of celery, 1 large onion, ½ stick of butter, tsp of garlic, tbsp of Better Than Bouillon, 3 containers of chicken bone broth, 1 bag of egg noodles, 2 lemons, salt, pepper and a parmesan rind.
She loved being married
After 32 years of marriage, Vassos lost her husband, John, to cancer in 2021. “I loved being married,” Vassos said in an interview in 2023 with Montgomery County Media. “He was a character and we had a very happy life together,” she said. “The thought was that I would never replace him, but I could still be happy with somebody. And I wanted to do that.”
