'The Golden Bachelorette' star Joan Vassos says Gerry Turner and the 'Bachelor' psychiatrist gave her 'the best advice' for dating as a widow

• "The Golden Bachelorette" star Joan Vassos said she got dating advice from Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner.
• Gerry suggested spending time having meaningful conversations with the men to get to know them.
• Joan also spoke to the show's psychiatrist about coping with guilt over dating as a widow.

Joan Vassos is stepping into the spotlight for the inaugural season of "The Golden Bachelorette" with newfound confidence and a support system of people rooting for her to find love again.

The series, a spinoff of ABC's wildly successful show "The Golden Bachelor," centers on people in their golden years looking for their next great love.

Joan, who competed for Gerry Turner's heart on "The Golden Bachelor," makes a return to the reality TV franchise as the first Golden Bachelorette.

The widow and mom of four previously won over Bachelor Nation — and Gerry — on "The Golden Bachelor." But after having her first and only one-on-one date during week three, she exited the show to be with her daughter, who was experiencing postpartum depression back at home.

When she returned to the show for the "Women Tell All" special, Joan said that she "felt bad" for cutting her connection with Gerry short. She also credited him with helping her to not feel invisible at her age.

"Gerry helped make me feel visible because he looked at me, and he cared about what I was saying, and he wanted to get to know me," she said.

And as it turned out, Gerry would become a helpful confidant heading into her journey on "The Golden Bachelorette."

Joan got relationship advice from Gerry before filming 'The Golden Bachelorette'

When it came time to prepare for her season of "The Golden Bachelorette," Joan said that she spoke to about four people, including Gerry.

"Probably the best advice I got from Gerry," Joan told Business Insider ahead of the series premiere Wednesday night. "He had done it most recently and had a more similar journey age-wise to mine."

"He said, don't invest in somebody too early," she recalled. "There's a lot of people there, and everybody deserves an equal chance. You don't know what's going to come of your original feelings for somebody."

Gerry also advised Joan to "let the story unfold with each and every person, date them like they're the only person there."

Given the accelerated format of the show, Gerry also told Joan, "don't waste any time."

"It's a very, very fast journey and make sure every conversation is important and you learn something about the person, because you're going to need all that knowledge to make the decisions in the end," Joan said he told her.

Joan turned to the show's psychiatrist to navigate feelings of guilt as she gave dating another try

Although Joan felt ready to find love again after the death of her husband, John, in 2021, she didn't realize that she had unresolved grief over her late husband until she appeared on "The Golden Bachelorette."

"Emotionally, I feel like I learned a lot that I didn't know, that I hadn't dealt with with the passing of my husband," Joan said.

Joan said she dated a bit after John's death, but didn't have any significant relationships until meeting Gerry on "The Golden Bachelor." To her surprise, she ended up connecting with even more contestants on "The Golden Bachelorette."

"As I was going through this journey and having some connections and started picturing a life with somebody, all of a sudden I felt really guilty and felt like I couldn't let go of my memory of John," Joan said, adding that he'll always be a part of her.

She said that she expressed this to the contestants on night one and turned to the "Bachelor" psychiatrist for advice on how to navigate her guilt.

"I was given a great analogy. They said, 'You have two balloons in your hands: this is John in this balloon, and this is this other person in this balloon, and you don't have to let go of John to have this person also,'" she said. "So, I could still have John in my heart and in my memory and in my mind, and there's still room for somebody else."

Joan described her season as emotional, both for her and for her men.

"There wasn't a single man that left this season that said that he didn't learn something about himself and come out a different person," she said.

New episodes of "The Golden Bachelorette" premiere on Wednesdays on ABC and stream the next day on Hulu.