‘Golden Bachelorette’ Joan Vassos Talks Love, Aging Boldly & Her Big New Adventure (EXCLUSIVE)
Plus, what Joan really thought of her new fiancé on day 1—spoiler: it’s so sweet!
Joan Vassos thought her life was over after the passing of her first husband, John. Knowing that their time together had come to an end, she believed the same thing that many women believe: that you can’t have a second act. But a few years later, Joan decided to take a leap and signed up to be on the first season of The Golden Bachelor, which sent her into a whirlwind of new opportunities and experiences, and eventually led her to meet her now-fiancé, Chock Chapple, after she was cast as the very first Golden Bachelorette.
Joan took the opportunity presented to her as one to empower not only herself, but other women in similar situations who believe that life ends in your 60s. Throughout her age-defying journey, she learned that you can have a second act, that it is not embarrassing to want more for yourself and your life, and that being in your golden years is a lot more fun than she ever thought possible.
Woman’s World had the opportunity to sit down with Joan following her season as The Golden Bachelorette and recent engagement to discuss how to take your life back and make the most of the opportunities that are still ahead of you.
WW: Let’s talk about your partnership with Aspercreme. How has the product improved your own life and what benefits should our readers expect based on your experience using it?
JV: I feel like this partnership was kind of made in heaven. I think age is just a number and that it shouldn’t ever define what you can do. I’m all about being active —from my recent engagement to everyday adventures — so staying active and engaged is really important to me. And I feel like at our age, for your readers especially, we are finally at a stage in our life where we actually have time to do the things we love. We spent years raising our kids and devoting our lives to our family and, finally, we’re at a stage in our life where we have some time. For me, that includes being with my grandkids and taking them to the park, and I get to travel to some places that I’ve always wanted to see. And I have a fiancé now to do it with…And I still have these great girlfriends who I love going on adventures with.
But you have to face it: it takes a little toll on our bodies now that we’re a little bit older. And that’s why I feel like the partnership with Aspercreme is so good, because it’s all about empowering people to keep doing the things that they love and that make them happy. And they make it so easy. Aspercreme has a pretty wide range of products: They have a spray and a roll on, patches and there’s creams. I love the roll on and they all have lidocaine in them, so they’re easy to use and they provide instant relief.
I love taking my grandchildren to the park and by the time we come home, they are exhausted and I have to give everybody a piggyback ride. It’s a pretty hefty walk and by the time I get home, my elbow always hurts. I started using the Aspercreme roll on, and it provides immediate relief and completely eliminates the pain.
I’m going on vacation with Chock, and I was, like, “I need to get a little bit of a vacation body, so I’ve been doing YouTube videos at home and that’s how I kind of stay in shape. I did a particularly hard one and that night my left hip was killing me. It was aching like crazy, and I sprayed the one with lidocaine on my hip. I went to bed thinking, “I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight,” but woke up the next morning and thought, “I did not wake up at all!” This stuff actually really works and I’m so excited that I’ve discovered it.
WW: Speaking of staying healthy and active, it can be a difficult task, especially with this cold weather. So, what are some of the activities that you enjoy to keep yourself active, even when it’s freezing and you want to stay inside?
JV: I feel we are so lucky that we live in an age where you don’t actually have to go to a gym to do a workout. I love the [workout] YouTube videos. I’ve been all about avoiding the old lady arms. I have eight-pound weights and I do the arm workout every day, and I do an ab workout every day. Sometimes I do a leg workout.
Also, just doing the things that I love, like being with my grandkids. They have endless energy, and they want to be carried or to be on the floor with them building blocks or teaching them how to ride a bike—that’s a lot of hard work, but it feels like you’re not exercising. You’re just being active and at the end of the day, you’re tired and you’ve gotten a workout in without even knowing you’ve done it.
WW: Was the process of being the very first Golden Bachelorette intimidating and when did it start to feel empowering?
JV: Intimidating, yes, but I was really lucky because I got to be on the Golden Bachelor first and got a taste of it. So, it wasn’t like I was thrust into this completely new world. I had gotten an idea of how to do it well, because I got to watch Gerry [the first Golden Bachelor] do it. He was really good at it. He was very open and vulnerable and he kind of encouraged us to be the same way.
So, when I got the privilege of being named the Golden Bachelorette, I was certainly nervous. I wanted to make sure I did a really good job representing women of this age in a really good way. I wanted to show that being in this second stage of life, in your 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s, can still be a really great part of life. It’s not the end. In fact, it can be a beginning, and for me, it was a beginning.
Part of my life ended — the life that I had with my late husband. We raised kids and we built a life together and it was wonderful. I was devastated when he passed away, but after a year or two, I thought I could have 32 years with somebody else. I have this whole second half of life that I want to live. So, when they named me the Golden Bachelorette, I thought this shouldn’t just be about me. This journey should be about everybody my age and defying the stereotypes of getting older and what that would look like. I wanted to show that it was dignified; that it wasn’t embarrassing and that you shouldn’t feel guilty about wanting to have more for yourself… being this age is a lot more fun than I ever imagined.
When I went on the show, I was terrified…but once I met the guys and started to get to know them, it became really fun, and it became invigorating. I’m getting to hopefully find my next person, but the people that I knew weren’t my person became my good friends. So, it wasn’t a sad adventure. I wasn’t sending people home and hurting people’s feelings. We all came out of that, and I contacted pretty much all of them… not a single one said there were any bad feelings and that they came out different, better people after this adventure that we went on. I feel like being on the show was the best thing that could happen to all of us.
WW: Let’s talk about your first night as the Golden Bachelorette — what was going through your mind when Chock first walked up to you on night one? As women, we all have female intuition and trustworthy gut feelings, so what was yours telling you when you first met your now-fiancé?
JV: It’s all about an interaction in the beginning and when he walked up to me, he knew all about my family. He knew all my kids’ names and he brought the chicken noodle recipe I had made on TikTok. I knew he was there just for me. He wasn’t there for anything else. He had all the right intentions. So, immediately, he caught my eye.
I still had this one question in my mind about him, which was, is it going to be fun? And that’s why I gave him that first date to Disneyland. You need to explore the people that you’re most interested in early on, because you don’t have a long time to get to know them. So, you have to pick your top contenders in the beginning. But I was also really careful, because people will hone in on a certain person and then find out part way through the season they’re not really the person that they thought they were—and then they’re really behind. So, I kind of honed in on Chock pretty early, but kept an open mind with everybody else. But he was always lingering.
WW: Many of our readers who are empowered in dating want to start this next phase of their life as you have with the Golden Bachelorette. So, what would be some of your best advice for them?
JV: At this point in my life, you don’t have a lot of opportunities. You have to go out and make your opportunities. I have different sayings for different parts of my life and this one is that “fortune favors the bold and go out and do big bold things.” You have to make things happen to you. They’re not going to come to you, especially at this stage in life. Take the big vacation or join a club or do the things that have scared you. Go do those things, because those are the things that are going to make a difference in your life.
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Woman's World does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.
