The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast - The OGs Return to the Bachelor Mansion PART 2 featuring Ben Higgins and Joan Vassos

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Our Bachelor Nation OGs Bob Guiney and Trista Sutter continue their homecoming to the Bachelor Mansion for more unbelievable stories and memories, and this time they brought Ben Higgins along for the ride!Bob, Trista and Ben hang out with Joan Vassos from The Golden Bachelor! She opens up about why she had to leave the show before it ended and she shares her true connection with Gerry. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hi, my name is Enya Eumanzor. And I'm Drew Phillips. And we run a podcast called Emergency Intercom. If you're a crime junkie and you love crimes, we're not the podcast for you. But if you have unmedicated ADHD... Oh my God, perfect. And want to hear people with mental illness, psychobabble.

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podcast. Grasias, come again. We got you when it comes to the latest in music and entertainment with interviews with some of your favorite Latin artists and celebrities. You didn't have to audition? No, I didn't audition. I haven't audition in like over 25 years. Oh, wow. That's a real G-talk right there. Oh, yeah. We'll talk about all that's viral and trending with a little bit of cheesement and a whole lot of laughs. And of course, the great bevras you've come to expect. Listen to the new season of Dresses Come Again on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is the Ben and Ashley I, almost famous podcast with IHeartRadio.

This is almost famous podcast. We are sitting here today with Bob Trista and Joan. We have an incredible interview for you. Who knows how long it goes? probably goes quite a while. Okay, so obviously Bob and Trista host the Almost Famous O.G., which is just so much fun to listen to. Thank you.

Tonight we have a whole group. The whole Golden Bachelor cast is now here, eating outside. Here's the deal. I just want to say this in front of everybody. Well, I've done this for seven years now. Yep. And, I mean, was it the Bachelor at one point. So I got to do some cool stuff.

Bob, you can agree, Trista, you're the bachelor. I was nervous tonight because I've been such a fan of the Golden Bachelor contestants. So we have to. Yeah. We were just like, I actually like, anxiously, like excited because. Well, because you were like, I mean, putting it out there that you were like, I want to host this show. I had to have lunch with Jesse a week and a half ago to apologize. You did?

Well, because I was like, dude, I wasn't trying to take your job. I just didn't think he wanted it. Like, I didn't, I mean, college football. How are you going to do college football with a bachelor season? Like, I thought the job was wide open. A paradise and a regular. Yeah. Like, how are you doing all this at once?

Yeah, right. So I was like, man, I only thought that this was not a thing you wanted. And I was like, if there was an open seat. Yeah. Please consider me. Yeah. Because I think this show is going to be a hit, which. Yeah, it is.

Hey, I wasn't wrong. It's been a hit. Yeah. Oh, I've said the same thing. May I say, so my big thing has been, and this is, I've said this since day one, age-appropriate casting. Yeah. My biggest fear of this show was that they were going to have 70-year-old Gary,

and they were going to cast a 39-year-old, a 51-year-old, just to get this drama that they want to manufacture. I loved that that was not what happened this year. Yeah. We're watching the show. I'm seeing absolutely stunning, beautiful women who are age-appropriate, as our next guest will be. But it was just lovely to see it.

And it was like it wasn't the bullshit drama that you see when you're seeing a lot of these shows. Do you know what I love? It's I can more relate to you guys and your plight to find love again than I can to the 26-year-olds who. And it's nothing I, it's nothing against them. No. I honestly feel like everyone deserves love, but for me personally, and I feel like a lot of people around the country, we relate to the fact that, you know, maybe we don't have a relationship currently and we've lived life and we know who we are. That we've lived life. So we had like these huge backstories.

So like the bullshit, like is like we're over that. You don't care anymore. Like we've had shit happen now. Okay. So like we've, you know, we've lost. our spouses and women have been divorced. One lady husband had committed suicide. We had kids who have gone through. I had a daughter who was home. The reason I left, she had just had a baby. She was suffering terrible postpartner depression. Like those bullshit things like you, like you looked

at me wrong. Like that stuff was not happening in our season. And we kind of agreed on that right in the beginning. We kind of came together. The first time we met, we were like, okay, I felt like my tribe is here. I finally found like going through life, going through trying to find love when you're in your 60s and 70s sucks. It's not fun. It doesn't happen organically. You have to make an effort. It's kind of demeaning a little bit, being out there, being in this age and looking for love. And like I walked into a room and I found like my tribe. There were 22 or 21 other people like going on the same journey as me. And it felt so comforting to have like all these people that I could talk to and like kind of learn from because like I didn't know how to do this.

I had no idea. My husband had passed away. It'll be almost three years now at the time when I applied for this. It was only two years. I hadn't really like gone into the dating game yet. And I didn't really know how to do it. And I've learned so much from these women. And they give you so much confidence. Like you, you gain the confidence that they have to go out there. And like, like, you deserve it. They made me feel like we deserve it. I mean, that was kind of the whole message from this season. There was hope. I love that. You have hope. So, Joan, I've always had this thing about the bachelor, which I've said for many years. And it's, you know, it's, it's been a thing. Maybe it's just to take the piss out of myself.

a little bit, but I've always said, like, you know, when you look at the show The Bachelor, it's not about the guy. It really isn't. And, you know, I think you probably know what I'm a mistake because I've said it to you a million times, but people always will say, like, what's your advice for the next Bachelor? And I'll say, well, my advice is it's not about you, right? It's about a bunch of women who have never, and this, I got to say, to be honest, I don't think it applies for this, for the Golden Bachelor.

But in the past, I've always kind of taken the piss out of myself and saying, like, it doesn't matter about the guy. It matters about a bunch of women who are overachievers, who've done amazing things in their lives, and they don't, you know, see themselves coming in second place to anything. But watching this season made me rethink this a lot, because I've always sort of had this dismissive mindset with it, and I hate to admit it, but it's kind of true. And watching this season, I saw like genuine friendships and genuine personalities blossom throughout the course of the show. And you all are beautiful and intelligent and accomplished people who have reached this milestone

and in your life. And you're also kind of at this point where it's like, what's next for me? Yeah. And so was Gary what was next for you? I mean, was that where you were going with this? Certainly a possibility. I mean, I obviously knew. that there were 22 of us and only one was going to go home with him.

So 21 people weren't. I was very open to the process of, like, I didn't want him to pick me as like a default or because, you know, he didn't have dates with other people. I wanted him to go and explore a relationship with every single other person. And then if he picked me in the end, then that was great. Or if I picked him in the end, I mean, really, it's a two-way street. Yeah, you got to pick him too. And, you know, we're like, we're not like the young girls.

So they're looking for, you know, fathers. You know, they have biological clocks. We don't have that. I'm not looking for a husband that's a good provider. I have my own money. I'm not looking for somebody who's going to be a good father. My kids are all grown. I was looking for a true companion.

So I have, like, kind of different things that I'm looking for. And I think the same is true, you know, for him. So he had, I mean, really, 22 really kind of different but interesting women that he could have chosen from. He needed to pick the person that was best for him. And I didn't know if that was me, but it could have been me. I don't know. I didn't, my journey ended really, you know, kind of pretty, pretty quickly. So it could have been me.

And I went there, I came here thinking that I was a possibility. Right. And now it's a two-way street. And it's not just him picking me, but it's me picking him. And it's same, you know, with all the women. Yep. Like Nancy left on her own. I left on my own.

You know, some people left on their own because, like, maybe he wasn't the perfect match. Right. So that's all right. It was okay. It's a two-way street. My name is Ed. Everyone say, hello Ed. From a very rural background myself, my dad is a farmer

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Every episode gets real about the why behind these changes and gives you the inspiration and maybe the push to make your next pivot. Listen to these women and more on She Pivots, now on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The U.S. Open is here. And on my podcast, Good Game with Sarah Spain, I'm breaking down the players from rising stars to legends chasing history. the predictions, well, we see a first-time winner and the pressure. Billy Jean King says pressure is a privilege, you know. Plus, the stories and events off the court and, of course, the honey deuses, the signature cocktail of the U.S. Open. The U.S. Open has gotten to be a very fancy, wonderfully experiential sporting event.

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Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. I don't write songs. God write songs. I take dictation. I didn't even know you've been a pastor. for over 10 years. I think culture is any space that you live in that develops you. On a recent episode of Culture Raises Us podcast, I sat down with Warren Campbell,

Grammy-winning producer, pastor, and music executive to talk about the beats, the business, and the legacy behind some of the biggest names in gospel, R&B, and hip-hop. This is like watching Michael Jackson talk about Thurley before it happened. Was there a particular moment where you realized just how instrumental music culture was to shaping all of our global ecosystem?

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in the beginning you have very small little snippets of time with the person. So like you'll have like two minutes or five minutes and they're quick. So you have like kind of like superficial conversations with them. I fortunately got a date with him. And so after the talent show, I had a date. And we had not one of those epic dates where you. go on a yacht and there's a lot of hubbub. We have like a regular old boring date where you go and you sit down at a table

and you have dinner. Of course, as you know, you can't eat. So you sit there at a table and you talk for three hours. You could when you were OGs. Yeah. We used to eat the hell out. We used to eat a lot. Oh, this food smells so good.

It was just a such hell of, it smelled delicious. I was starving. Now, that probably is, though, the most common question that I still get asked is why don't you eat the food? So when you're an OG, the food is brought out. You ate it. You had a great date. But normal people.

Normal people. When I was on the show as the Bachelor, the food would be beautiful, but it had been sitting out for three hours. So they had plated it, the lobsters, and the whatever. First, I'm allergic to lobster, so I was never eating that. He's not a shellfish guy. Yeah, I'm not a shellfish guy. But two, it's been sitting out forever.

And so we never ate. I ate in between dates. Yeah, we did. So they fed me before I went on the date. But I, like, I sat down and it was, and ours smelled good. So ours was kind of, it came from an Italian restaurant, right next door. So it was like smelling good. It was warm. They sat us down. I wanted to eat it so badly, but we couldn't. But it was okay. So we had this like actually really good

conversation. It was like a normal date where you sit there for like three hours and you just talk about life. And we had a really, really good conversation. And at that point, I thought, I could see myself with him possibly. I knew we had like a kind of a big age difference. So I'm 60. He had just turned 72. Okay. So that's like a big age difference. So I was still My wife and I call that a Thursday. You already said that tonight. Yeah, we're 13 years. So you know.

All right, all right. Sorry. My wife and I call that a Tuesday. A Tuesday. And so those things can work. Obviously, you know, they can work. And certainly at this age, I think that it's more likely to work because, like, you don't have to worry about having kids and, you know, biological cops and all that kind of crap.

So I did see, for the first time, actually, in my dating since my husband passed, I kind of felt like I saw a future with somebody. I did feel like he was a really good guy and we had a lot in common and the conversation was super easy and it flowed and like we had you know conversations and you probably realize this

that you have these important conversations you don't just talk about crap because you're making you're both making a decision in 30 days or less than 30 years you can't talk about like you know what's your dog's name. The weather. You gotta talk about like

would you ever move to like my hometown or where do you picture yourself living? Yeah you jump out of it. automatically to the big stuff. You have to do big stuff. You should. You have to do big stuff. So we had those conversations.

That's important. Good. Yeah. So I felt like, I never felt like he wasn't a good match for me, but my journey ended so quickly that I don't think I ever got to the point either way. I never got to like be all invested or not invested. I was like in limbo and then it was over. And I have to say I went up to Joan tonight and said I was so inspired in a way because

watching her leave the show because she needed to, you know, be there for her daughter, just is how I feel like I would hope I would have reacted, you know, or would react if that were my situation. But I think that, you know, your value system, I really respect. And anyway, yeah. So I just, I appreciate it. You would have left because. Oh, because that's what we do.

We talked about it. That's what we do as a mom. I didn't even have to think twice. And I feel, I feel kind of bad that I'm getting like credit for this. People, oh, you're such a good mom. I feel like, yeah, every good mom would do this. You have to give yourself credit because honestly,

there are people out there that are not good moms and they wouldn't do that. So you need to give yourself credit. It's true. So I have gotten some, you know, as you know, you get a lot of messages from people. Yeah. I'm strangers. And a lot of them's like, oh my God, you're such a good mom. And I answer to say, oh, you know, super thank you.

Yeah. But then I get a message every once in a while, and not rarely, honestly, that my mom was not there for me when I had my kid. And I had this depression. And my heart goes out for them. And I think, you know, they were really ripped off in the mom category because that's not right. And, you know, that was a lousy mom. So all of us good or decent moms would do that. And the crappy moms didn't.

And that's, they got, you know, feel bad for them. I'm going to do something different. I want to dive into Joe. and I have some really, if you're okay with it, like more like specific questions, but I want to keep Bob and Trista here for the next 20, 30 minutes. Yeah.

We're going to do a crossover. It's going to be almost famous OG and almost famous here with Joan. We'll be back with more. Follow the Ben and Ashley I, Almost Famous Podcasts on IHartRadio or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi, my name is Enya Humanzor.

And I'm Drew Phillips. And we run a podcast called Emergency. Intercom. If you're a crime junkie and you love crimes, we're not the podcast for you. But if you have unmedicated ADHD, oh my God, perfect. And want to hear people with mental illness, psychobabble. Yes, yes. Then Emergency Intercom is the podcast for you. Open your free IHeartRadio app. Search Emergency Intercom and listen now. Do we really need another podcast with a condescending finance brof trying to tell us how to spend our own money? No thank you. Instead, check out Brown Ambition.

Each week, I, your host, Mandy Money, gives you real talk, real advice with a heavy dose of I feel uses, like on Fridays when I take your questions for the BAQA. Whether you're trying to invest for your future, navigate a toxic workplace, I got you. Listen to Brown Ambition on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our life. lifetime. On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab, every case has a story to tell, and the DNA holds the truth. He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen. I was just

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