“It was hard, because I liked him,” Carol says of deciding to leave despite her feelings for Golden Bachelor Mel
NEED TO KNOW
- The Golden Bachelor season 2 contestant Carol, 63, tells PEOPLE why she decided to leave the show before going to the hometown dates in a recent episode
- She explains that she hadn’t spent much private time with lead Mel Owens and felt their connection wasn’t as strong as what he had with the remaining women
- Carol also shares what she’s looking for in her next relationship
It’s always important to trust your intuition, especially when it comes to love.
When Carol, 63, sent herself home on the Oct. 15 episode of The Golden Bachelor, she caught lead Mel Owens, 66, by surprise. The decision wasn’t an easy one, she tells PEOPLE, but it was what she knew was the best for both their futures.
“I had the least amount of time [out of] the women — the remaining women,” she explains. “I thought, if I don’t get the one-on-one, because he already knew Cindy pretty well, so I thought she’s probably the only one that would, I thought it was between me and Cindy.”
“It was funny, because I love Cindy, so we looked at each other, and she saw that I was like, ‘Uh,’ ” Carol recalls of when the date card was ultimately given to Cindy, 60. “So after that I’m like, ‘No. He’s not going to give me any time.’ “
At that point in the show, Carol hadn’t yet had a one-on-one date with Mel, and she felt uneasy about that, knowing the upcoming week was going to be hometowns.
“It was hard, because I liked him,” she notes. “I really did. I said he was handsome how many times? So, that still stands. But anyway, I just knew. I had to protect my heart, too. So I kind of knew then, I wasn’t his girl. So I thought, ‘You know what? He’s not my guy,’ because I want someone to choose me. Even at 63, you want to be chosen.”
“I kind of thought, ‘It’s going to be better for me to leave this journey,’ so I did,” she continues.
At the time, Mel said he was “shocked” by her departure but understood that she had “to be true to yourself.” Still, Carol exited with hope that the love of her life is out there, now revealing that she’s looking for someone who is kind, loyal and Christian.
“Just someone that is a great companion,” she shares. “I want a nice companion, and someone that I can live the rest of my days with. That’s what I’m looking for.”
She then quips: “Okay, I have to throw this in — he’s got to like sports. Because we come from a sports family, I can’t imagine him coming like, ‘What’s that?’ I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t deal with that.”
Reminiscing on her time on The Golden Bachelor, Carol doesn’t have regrets, although she admits she wishes she had taken the age-old advice to always be yourself.
“That’s not always easy, especially when you get nervous,” she says. “So I think going into this, going forward, just to continue to be myself and to be genuine, I think that’s good advice.”
“I think I was myself,” she adds of watching herself back, going on to point out one specific scene where she was much shyer than usual. “That night where I couldn’t talk, my friends watched that episode and they’re like, ‘What was that?’I got all these calls the next day. I’m like, ‘Okay, you try it with all these cameras on you!’ It’s not easy. Now I have a million questions I could ask. Isn’t that always the case?”
