The Golden Bachelor star Mel Owens has opened up about whether he was willing to get engaged at the end of his season.
After Cindy Angelcyk Cullers, Debbie Siebers, and Peg Munson — who were all falling in love with The Golden Bachelor star — took Mel home to meet their families, Mel filmed his overnight Fantasy Suite dates.
Mel, an attorney and former NFL player, then taped the Final Rose Ceremony in Antigua and chose a winner.
When asked if he got engaged, Mel suggested that he wasn’t going to let the typical The Bachelor format dictate the finale outcome during an interview with Us Weekly.
“I told the producers, ‘I’m here with an open heart and open mind,'” Mel shared with the magazine.
“But it’s a two-way street. Just because I want to get engaged doesn’t mean they want to get engaged. They might want to date, like, ‘You’re cool. Let’s just hang out.'”
Mel admitted that during the final days of filming The Golden Bachelor’s second season, he was still “contemplating” whether he was ready to get down on one knee and propose marriage.
“I like being married. I like the companionship, having a partner and shared experiences, but it has to be someone special,” Mel explained.
Mel, however, prided himself on making logical and practical decisions on the show.
“In football, they’re always trying to trick you. There’s a lot of commotion going on, a lot of noise,” Mel said.
“When things are crazy, I get really calm, and you can make decisions better.”
If Mel does end up engaged, hopefully Bachelor Nation will be invested in his love story.
“I feel like… by now, I should know something about him. I still know nothing!” The Golden Bachelorette star Joan Vassos complained during an episode of “The Ben & Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast” earlier this month.
“He just doesn’t open up… So I feel like we’re going to run out of time, and we may get to the end of the season and not know Mel. And that’s going to be a problem.”
The podcast’s co-host Ben Higgins suggested that Mel needs a moment of vulnerability, or an “emotional breakdown” of sorts, to connect with the audience.
Ben essentially hopes to see Mel sad over a particular exit or conflicted between bachelorettes.
“He says the right things. He listens to the ladies talk, they tell him how much they like him, and then he says, ‘That’s great. That means so much to me.’ We don’t know him at all,” Ben complained.
“We don’t,” Joan agreed, “and we’re going to run out of time.”
Joan wondered if Mel simply “doesn’t have it in him” to be expressive and let his walls down.
“[That] is what I’m afraid of, that we’re just going to run out of time and he just isn’t going to give that to us,” Joan noted.
“Because we’re getting pretty far along into this!… Things are going to get serious, really soon… and we know nothing about Mel!”
Joan repeated to Ben, “I’m just afraid he doesn’t have it in him. He doesn’t have anything to say!”
Joan and Ben discussed how The Golden Bachelor star seemed to focus too much on chemistry without diving deeper with his intelligent and sweet bachelorettes.
