When The Golden Bachelor premiered last year, one of its primary goals was to foster hope that love can be found at any stage in your life. It certainly did that over the course of a wholesome and inspirational season, but what the contestants may not have considered was that if you're never too old to find love, you’re also never too old to meet creepy people on the Internet. As The Golden Bachelorette is set to hit the 2024 TV schedule, Joan Vassos and others from Gerry Turner’s season revealed the filthiest messages and requests they’ve gotten, and y’all, these are wild.
Joan Vassos may be making the right decision to continue looking for love on reality TV, as she’s set to star on the premiere season of The Golden Bachelorette, especially considering the kind of people who slid into her DMs after she exited Gerry Turner’s season early. She told EW that she never felt comfortable enough to meet anyone who messaged her, saying that some of the DMs were “weird.” She revealed:
I got dick pics. And I got people with foot fetishes. They wanted me to send them pictures of my feet and would pay me for it. One person offered to buy all the shoes that I wore on Golden Bachelor. It was scary. My kids were like, ‘Give me your phone, mom. We’re blocking all this.’
Oof, that is a lot of information. Joan Vassos, who is 61, grew up in the glorious time before unsolicited dick pics were a thing. Unfortunately the same can’t be said about her golden years. I am particularly disturbed by whoever inquired about purchasing the widow’s shoes, and I can only imagine how quickly Vassos became familiar with the “Block” function.
However, (sigh) she's not alone, as other members of The Golden Bachelor cast have also spoken about the indecent proposals that came through their inboxes. April Kirkwood allegedly got propositioned by a man — and then his wife entered the chat! The 66-year-old recalled:
The creepiest one was an old yucky man. And then right after, his wife [messaged me] and said, 'Would you like to do a threesome?' I was shocked. They wanted to go in together with me.
Can’t hate on a couple for shooting their shot, I guess? As for Leslie Fhima, runner-up of The Golden Bachelor’s first season, things may not have worked out with Gerry Turner, but she quickly found out there were other fish in the sea. And when I say “fish,” I mean “sugar daddies.” And when I say “sea,” I mean this scary, scary world. Fhima said:
[One man] wanted to be my sugar daddy, and he itemized everything that he would pay for. I’ve been hit on by way more young men than [men] my age.
An itemized list?! That takes forethought. I’m flabbergasted. Please, Ms. Fhima, release this itemized list, because I am dying to know these price points.
Joan Vassos will get another chance to find love from the pool of ABC’s pre-screened men (including one parent of a Bachelor contestant) next month on The Golden Bachelorette. If that doesn’t work out — and I’ve certainly got my concerns after Vassos revealed a conversation she had with Gerry Turner — at least she knows that OnlyFans would be a viable option!
The Golden Bachelorette premieres at 8 p.m. ET Wednesday, September 18, on ABC and can be streamed the next day with a Hulu subscription.
