Joana Vassos is talking about her late husband.
In an exclusive interview with ET’s Denny Directo before her Golden Single At the premiere, Joan spoke about how her late husband, John Vassos, inspired her to take on the role. John and Joan were married for 32 years before his death in 2021 following a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 59 years old.
“I feel like he maybe helped me get here, honestly,” Joan told ET. He told me just before he passed away, ‘You need to go out and find someone else. You were the best wife in the world and I want you to be happy. He gave me this wonderful gift before he died and said to go and do something, and here I am.”
As for what John would think of her trying to find love on TV – first with Gerry Turner about The Golden Bachelorand now with her own season of the franchise – Joan admitted she “thought about it a lot” before making the leap.
“I had a conversation with a friend of mine and I thought, ‘God, I got the offer to be in it and I’m a little scared that I’m not honoring his memory by doing this. am I cheating on him in some way,'” she recalled. “Obviously not, but I had that feeling for some reason. She said, ‘You’re crazy! He would have loved that.'”
Upon thinking about this, Joan agreed with her friend’s assessment.
“He loved reality shows. He would dive in with both feet into whatever you did (type of person),” she said. “I think he’s up there saying, ‘Look, that’s my wife down there. She’s doing this.'”
Joan found out she was going on this journey during a Zoom call with the franchise’s host Jesse Palmer.
“Jesse Palmer, who I love and knew, zoomed in on me. I thought, ‘Huh, it’s not that weird that Jesse is Zooming me. I thought I was having a meeting with the producer,’” she said. “It was Jesse and I thought, ‘OK, something’s going on here.’ And then he said to me, ‘I hope you have some time this summer, because you’re the first Golden Bachelorette.’ It was crazy. I screamed, of course.”
Joan didn’t have a moment’s pause before accepting the role, thanks in large part to the fact that her family was by her side during the call.
“I didn’t have to think about it for a second because I thought about it a lot earlier when they said they were considering me. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it,” Joan said. “I even talked to my family about it to make sure they were okay with it because I went from being one of many people to being the only one. much greater public prominence, and they were all wonderful about it. They wanted me to do it.
Despite being supportive, Joan’s family, made up of four children and three grandchildren, had concerns about the role.
“(They were) maybe a little worried about me kissing someone on TV,” Joan said. “That could happen. I promised I wouldn’t do that, but I guess I lied. They shouldn’t have even asked me that. That’s not fair. I can do whatever I want, so I can kiss a man or two on TV. .I don’t know .
Also potentially concerned about Joan’s on-screen kisses are students and staff at the all-boys school where she works as an administrator.
“I will probably be ridiculed a lot. People are going to make fun of me when I go back to work, but I signed up for this and I don’t care,” she said, before predicting about her men: “He’s there and he’s handsome and I need to make sure he’s a good kisser. .”
As for her outlook on the journey, Joan said she is “trying to go in with no expectations” and the mindset that “what happens, happens.” She also insisted that she is not seeking to replicate the relationship she had with John, but rather “a different love”.
“I’m hopeful and I have no idea what it will look like, honestly, but I believe it’s possible,” she said. “It took me a long time to get to that place, so I’m really happy to be in that place. I just wonder what it will be and I hope it will be in this house.”
Joan’s Journey to Love will air Wednesdays this fall on ABC.