It was a magical second in time a few years in the past when America fell head-over-heels for Gerry Turner and the ladies on The Golden Bachelor. We witnessed robust however sincere conversations about grief and the invisibility that comes with growing older, and we celebrated as hope was restored that love and friendship may be discovered at any age. Positive, a number of the shine was misplaced when Turner and Theresa Nist divorced simply three months after their wedding ceremony, however we’re about to do all of it once more.
The Golden Bachelor Season 2 is anticipated to premiere on the 2025 TV schedule this fall, and 66-year-old Mel Owens has been introduced because the lead. It was a shocking transfer from the Bachelor Nation higher-ups, as they hardly ever go exterior of their already-established solid to discover a lead, however I truly love this transfer. In actual fact, I feel they need to comply with swimsuit and do it for The Bachelor as properly.
Why An Outsider Was Chosen For The Golden Bachelor Season 2
Whenever you have a look at Mel Owens, he positively suits the outline of somebody you’d anticipate to be on The Golden Bachelor. He’s conventionally handsome, and he holds a profitable job as a lawyer after retiring from a nine-season profession within the NFL. Franchise host Jesse Palmer supplied some extra context into Mel Owens’ choice, telling US Weekly:
Mel is clearly tremendous good-looking. He’s very charming, he’s very clever, he’s very profitable. He had this unimaginable professional soccer profession and transitioned into turning into a profitable warrior. I feel whereas he’s had loads of success professionally, there have been some hills and valleys in his private life.
The lawyer — who’s from Michigan however lives in California — tragically misplaced his father, Jesse Palmer stated, and his spouse Fabiana Pimentel filed for divorce in 2020 after 25 years of marriage. Mel Owens shifted his focus throughout robust occasions to elevating his two sons, and now that they’re apparently heading off to varsity, he’s prepared to seek out somebody to share his life with. Palmer continued:
I don’t assume he’s essentially in search of something closely extravagant. Whenever you discuss with him, what he misses most about being married and being in a relationship, it’s simply having and having fun with these easy on a regular basis moments. He’s simply in search of companionship. It’s simply actually pure and simply listening to him speak about it’s actually transferring. So I feel he’s going to be an incredible lead. I feel he’s an incredible option to be our subsequent Golden Bachelor.
Clearly Mel Owens wasn’t amongst our high picks for The Golden Bachelor Season 2, however I’m truly optimistic in regards to the upcoming season.
I Assist Casting Exterior Of Earlier Golden Contestants
As a lot as I might have liked to see fan favourite Charles Ling search for love on TV or watched Jordan Heller discover somebody to take again to Chicago, I’m truly not upset that The Bachelor producers went with an outsider. The actual fact of the matter is they won’t have had a lot of a alternative.
Joan Vassos’ pool of suitors on The Golden Bachelorette was smaller than the solid of a standard Bachelorette season, so immediately you’ve received fewer males to select from. Now take out the fellows who’ve discovered new relationships, like Mark Anderson, who hard-launched his relationship with One Tree Hill actress Barbara Alyn Woods again in October.
You doubtless additionally need to take away any of the Goldens showing on Bachelor in Paradise, together with Gary Levingston, as that season will end taping in Might, reportedly simply a few weeks earlier than manufacturing begins on The Golden Bachelor 2 in June. I’m truthfully unsure what number of guys are left after that.
I additionally like that the lead this time is a divorcé. Each Gerry Turner and Joan Vassos’ spouses had handed away, and I hope that Mel Owens’ scenario opens the door to the contestants having the ability to discuss extra overtly about marriages ending later in life. He was married for 25 years, in spite of everything, and we’ve had beforehand married leads on the flagship sequence, so why not on The Golden Bachelor?
Bachelor Nation additionally has fairly sturdy connections to the NFL, so it’s type of enjoyable to dip again into that participant pool once more. Jesse Palmer, for one, performed for the New York Giants when he appeared on The Bachelor’s fifth season in 2005. Different notable Bachelor Nation contestants with NFL ties embody Jordan Rodgers, Tyler Cameron, Dale Moss and Clay Harbour to call just some.
Why I Need A Beginner To Lead The Bachelor Season 30
Nearly all of the time, the brand new lead has been chosen from the previous season of The Bachelorette. Nevertheless, with The Bachelorette being canceled for 2025, producers for The Bachelor Season 30 — assuming there shall be one; there’s no official renewal but — received’t have that choice. To be able to maintain issues within the Nation, so to talk, they’d need to dip again to Jenn Tran or Charity Lawson’s seasons (and even additional again!).
Sorry to say, however I feel they’re going to need to recruit any respectable, still-single males from these seasons to populate the Bachelor in Paradise 10 solid, so who even might they select? I suppose somebody who doesn’t associate up in Costa Rica might get the decision, however once more I ask who was attention-grabbing sufficient (and non-problematic sufficient) to steer a season?
I admit I nonetheless really feel a little bit bit burned about how the whole lot performed out on The Bachelorette Season 21 with Jenn Tran’s merciless finale, and I’m prepared to simply begin recent. It looks like it’s time anyway.
The final time The Bachelor solid a lead who was not already a earlier contestant was Matt James in 2020. Even then, he was initially slated to be a part of Clare Crawley’s season earlier than COVID compelled the present into hiatus. He was subsequently named the lead of Season 25.
There’s loads of change taking place in Bachelor Nation proper now, with a brand new showrunner taking up Bachelor in Paradise and The Bachelorette on indefinite hiatus. Assuming ABC continues to supply its decades-old actuality courting present, now could be nearly as good a time as any to interrupt the mildew.
Bachelor in Paradise Season 10 premieres Monday, July 7, on ABC, and whereas a premiere date hasn’t been introduced for The Golden Bachelor Season 2, it’s more likely to kick off in November just like the earlier two iterations have. Each exhibits shall be obtainable to stream the following day with a Hulu subscription.