The Golden Bachelorette star Joan Vassos has slammed Nicolle Kate, saying she’s ruining Mel Owens’ season of The Golden Bachelor.
Nicolle, a 64-year-old yoga instructor from Miami Beach, FL, made waves from the start of The Golden Bachelor by aggressively pursuing — and making out with — Mel in front of the other women.
And on the latest Season 2 episode, Nicole was shown telling Roxanne how their exposure on the show could advance their careers and propel them into fame.
“I told myself from the beginning I’m not dating Mel, I’m dating America. I’m dating everybody watching, and not watching. That gives you exposure like you’ve never had,” Nicolle said on the The Golden Bachelor’s October 8 episode.
“I’d love to be a spokeswoman for mid-life beauty products or healthy products,” she added, “so I would become more and more of an influencer.”
Joan complained to Ben Higgins on his “The Ben & Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast” recently about how Nicolle didn’t hold back — and her behavior was shocking.
“I felt like she was really full of herself that morning,” Joan said.
“She got up with a new lease on life and she was just going to go put it all out there. She was like, ‘I came here not just dating Mel; I’m dating America.’ And I was like, ‘I’m not even sure what that means?'”
Joan also recalled Nicolle saying how she was on The Golden Bachelor for those watching and not watching.
“I’m also not sure what that means,” Joan quipped.
“Then she said, ‘We have Real Housewives status.’ I think… her thought of her [fame or reach] is overinflated. There are lots of people who come off the show and go back to their normal lives.”
Joan said when she finished filming The Golden Bachelorette, she returned home to Maryland on a Friday and “went back to work” on Monday morning.
“Your life doesn’t change that much. You go back to your regular life, and I don’t think she gets that, or I don’t think that’s what she wants. But I do feel like it was so blatant, it did kind of ruin things.”
Joan went on to admit, “I think she sucks the air out of the room with her weird comments!”
Ben then asked Joan about a particular line from the show, and Joan immediately knew what he was referring to.
“I still can’t comprehend it, to be honest!” Joan said.
“Nicolle said, ‘The last cast was not that good looking,’ or something along those lines,” Ben recalled.
“Yeah, ‘they weren’t that great looking,’ or something like that,” Joan agreed.
“I actually stopped it and rewound it because I couldn’t believe that somebody would actually say that! And I’m like, ‘Yup, she sure as heck said that!'”
Joan said Nicolle’s comment left her speechless.
“I don’t even know what to say to that,” Joan noted, adding how there were beautiful and wonderful women on both seasons of The Golden Bachelor.
“I just don’t think she’s in touch with reality. I just think she is so full of herself and she is so — I almost feel like her whole world is the show right now and all of her happiness and all of her status is involved in this show.”
Joan therefore determined that Nicolle tried to make her mark on the show “really big” and “really special, in her mind.”
“She’s also very, very, very in tune with looks and the way people look,” Joan said, adding how the women on Season 2 are not any more beautiful than the women on Gerry Turner’s season.
“Everybody is different. Everybody is beautiful in their own way, and she just needs this to be bigger in that way also.”
Joan criticized Nicolle for being “so out there” with her statements.
“Eventually, she’s going to say something to him [that he may not like]. I just can’t imagine that she’s going to hide it from him for much longer,” Joan told Ben.
She continued, “Is The Golden Bachelor trying to keep her around to create controversy? If he discovers she’s lying about [things], is he going to send her home and not give her a rose?”
Joan said the lie about the lemon bars — when Nicolle took credit for a group of women’s work in the kitchen — would’ve been “a perfect time” for Mel to have eliminated Nicolle.
“Because we are all seeing from the outside that that needs to happen,” Joan said.
Joan insisted it was “all physical” between Mel and Nicolle.
“When is he ever going to get in touch with reality and what she really is like? Because she’s only showing good sides of herself! He’s not seeing all of the stuff we’re seeing,” she concluded.
