Warning: This article contains spoilers for ‘The Golden Bachelorette’
Before this week’s Men Tell All episode of The Golden Bachelorette, fans of the show might still be reeling about last week’s turn of events. After all, Joan Vassos‘ top three men seemed to be building a strong connection with her before Pascal Ibgui self-eliminated during his Fantasy Suite date.
And while the moment might’ve caught viewers by surprise, Joan recently opened up about not being as blindsided as we were by Pascal’s decision. In fact, she saw it coming after their Tahitian bonding ceremony earlier in the day.
“We were asked to talk about things that neither of us were ready to talk about. I just felt very uncomfortable. He clearly was uncomfortable,” Joan remembered in an interview with Katie Couric Media. “He was sweating. I could tell things weren’t good, and by the end of it, I felt like he couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He was done.”
“The ceremony was fairly long, and it was emotional, and neither one of us felt comfortable doing it,” she said. “So I knew, as that date ended, we were not in a great place.”
A few hours later, when the two met again for their nighttime portion of the date, Joan knew what was coming.
“I know what love is. I’ve experienced it, you’ve experienced it,” Pascal, who dressed up as Joan for Halloween, told Joan. “And I’m caring about you as a friend. But I’m not in love, you know, and I just can’t be there and it’s hurting me because we have a good time together.”
The rejection, understandably, also made Joan question all of her other connections on the show.
“I thought that when I got down to the final four, they would want to be with me and that they would be as far along in their emotions and the journey as I was,” she said. “I found that they weren’t, and that was really shocking.”
Luckily, host Jesse Palmer knew exactly what to say. “Jesse told me, ‘I had the same problem. I had a girl self-eliminate right at the end,'” he told her. “He was so shocked, and I said, ‘Well, I feel like, Am I not lovable? Did I do something wrong that I’m surprised that they’re not as far along as I am? Because I felt like my journey was way harder.'”
“I did think that I had failed in some way, but Jesse made me feel better because he was a male lead, he was a professional football player — he had a lot of great qualities — and he still had somebody to self-eliminate,” she said.
Overall, Joan seems to have come to terms with her and Pascal’s split, knowing that continuing with their relationship was always supposed to be a mutual decision.
“I actually said that multiple times during rose ceremonies,” she said. “I said, ‘This is a two-way street, and you don’t have to accept a rose. If you don’t feel like you are forming a bond with me, or we don’t have a romantic future, you don’t have to take the rose.'”
“I just was surprised when it came down to the final four,” she explained. “I thought, at that point, I could be confident that they felt the same way about me as I did them.”
Talking about his experience on the show, Pascal recently opened up to Glamour about his struggles, and perhaps the main reason he called things off with Joan.
“I think the concept that The Golden Bachelor needs to be modified to a way where they could accommodate the older generation like myself,” he said. “To me, if I meet somebody who lives in [another suburb of Chicago], okay then. We could go spend every weekend together. We could spend a couple of nights a week together. But if you live in Washington DC, when am I going to see you?”
“I think, to me, that’s the biggest challenge I had with Joan,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to invest because I want a partner on a daily basis.”
From the looks of it, it seems Joan and Pascal have had a moment to heal and process why they weren’t the right fit. Some couples just aren’t meant to be!
Before you go, click here to see all of the ‘Bachelor’ & ‘Bachelorette’ couples who are still together:
Leave a Comment