Joan Vassos
Appearances
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
I thought that was so funny. Oh, my God. I know. Isn't it hilarious?
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
No, no, no, no. We all sleep together.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
It's hilarious. And it's such a surprise. And now it's kind of out there in the world that this is how it works in that mansion. And I was in a room with three other people. I was on a top bunk. And it's like, I was the youngest in the room. I was the youngest in the mansion. So I was the youngest in the room. So I got the top bunk. Right.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Yeah. It had a ladder, but I have this thing that when I wear high heels for like too many hours in a day, I get leg cramps. And so I'd be in the middle of the night jumping up and I would be in the top bunk and I'm trying to stand up and actually that ceilings are really high. So I could stand up in the top bunk and trying to get like cramp out of my foot and my leg.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
And I remember like more than one time thinking, this is how I die. I'm going to die with like my head cracked open. And I was like, this is how I go.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
That would be terrible. That would be a terrible scandal in Hollywood. That would increase ratings.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
That's a good question. Um, so two of my daughters are married and then my oldest son has a fiance and my youngest son just moved in with his girlfriend. And I just love- like how fun they are together. Like they just laugh and they have a really good time and like the joy, they love being together.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
And I, I'm not sure, like, I remember those days when, you know, John and I were younger, um, and it kind of, sometimes life takes over and you end up, you know, you're raising your kids and you're, you know, building careers and you,
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
kind of forget to just laugh with each other and so maybe like that's my biggest takeaway from my kids right now is that like you can't forget to just have like a funny goofy day sometimes and just belly laugh that's so nice and I assume they're happy with the end result uh yeah they sure okay good
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
So you have to figure it's a totally different thing. You have to figure out how do you merge lives or how do you invite them into your life and see how they fit and How do you fit into their life? So it's like it is really different and actually a little harder to find somebody. Honestly, the pool of people is a lot smaller when you're in your 20s and 30s.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Yeah, I kind of agree the same thing. I actually have a wonderful mother-in-law I'm still really close to. But I agree with you that, you know, you don't want to make the interaction for your mate difficult. So like if you are complaining about his or her mother and how they're driving you crazy, then it's going to put a strain on your relationship.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
And it's also going to put a strain on their relationship with their mother. So I think you have to be really careful the way you address it. But if, like you said, it becomes too hard, if you like feel comfortable actually talking to someone,
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
your mate's mother um I I kind of feel like that would be the way to go and not involve him but you have to do it in a really respectful way like I love you I love your son or I love your daughter and I know we have many many years together and I want them to be happy I just have something that I I need to talk to you about that like bothers me and maybe we can talk it through just be like very very very careful yeah good Joan that's great I like your answer better than
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
I don't know if Neil does the lab created diamonds. I feel the same way. I think the natural ones, because I think the special part of it is that it's not perfect and that it has like it's everyone has its own identity because it was created in nature. And I like that about the diamond.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
I don't necessarily think like a perfect diamond would be something I would really want because everybody can have a perfect diamond if they're created in a lab. It's that they're not perfect and they were created in nature.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
I agree. Definitely. The discussion prior to getting married is really, really important these days, though. I don't feel like 29 is very old. I think people are having kids much later in life. And, um, but the flip side to that is that, you know, you don't want to have them too late. Kids require a lot of energy.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
And if you want to have more than one, you don't want to start too late or they end up with really old. Like you don't want to be in your forties and sending them to kindergarten. Um, it requires energy. It requires a lot of attention. Um, But I do think that you don't want to rush it. If you don't think you're ready, you know, it's going to change your life. It's going to be life changing.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
And if you're not ready, then, you know, you need to have that discussion. But I think it's only fair if you're not ready and your spouse is to actually kind of put a timeline to it, because maybe you're 29 is never going to feel ready. And you need to have that conversation because maybe they're not the right person for you.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Huh. Like I kind of feel like... I kind of feel like one person, I want to say one person, but then I'm not sure if that's always fair. So maybe split or alternate in the beginning and then figure out finances. I mean, it kind of depends on people's finances.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
I would never want a guy to pay more than money than he did or whatever.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
No, ask for parents' permission or blessing, not permission.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Hmm. I feel like a committed dating relationship is a time to put it on social media.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
I was trying to be modern. I really wanted to say the modern answers, but I wanted to be like actually truthful. So I gave you my truth.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Um, no, but thank you for having me. This was really fun. And I have my mom, she's 92 and we play these kinds of games all the time. And she like, I, I, I need to get a podcast with her. I feel like you guys are so fun.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
The great thing about like the odor you get is you like lose your filter and they'll say anything, which makes it so much more fun. I love that.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Yeah. So like you're both right on both accounts. Like it's a little easier because the men kind of have an emotional intelligence. They, you know, they kind of know what they want in life. So you're either you fit that idea or you don't. And they're not like trying to figure out what they want in life. They kind of know it and they chances are already have it and have built it.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
But once again, there aren't as many people and you do have to really consider that.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
like what you like out of your life and what you're not willing to give up um in a relationship with somebody so you're always going to have some kind of sacrifice but you know like what part like i'm not going to move from maryland i've made that perfectly clear from day one actually even before we started filming i said i'm not leaving maryland so
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
um if someone wants to be be with me they have to know that i don't expect them to move and be with me and i don't i don't want somebody who expects me to move and be where they live um i think that's too much to give up it's too much to ask somebody to do so they have to like realize it's going to take some effort in another way by traveling or by arranging when you're going to see each other it requires some work but i think it's too much to ask to leave their lives that they've spent their you know 60 years building
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
I'm staying in Maryland. You know, I have the ability to travel now. And, you know, I have my family there and my grandchildren there. I want to be able to see them whenever I want. I will never not have a house there. But, you know, I can travel. I can go and spend a couple weeks. I can spend a month. I can, you know, spend time someplace else. But my home base is going to be Maryland.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Everybody asks that question, Grandma. So that's kind of an interesting question. I found a lot of love in that house. I mean, the men are lovely people. I wish I could expand on... like whether I found a single love more, but I'm not allowed to.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
And I also really want you guys to watch the show because I think like as far as me and spoilers, I never like want to know the spoilers because I love watching to see how the story unfolds. So, yeah.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Thank you for having me. I'm excited.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Yeah. So they're very different because like, like you said, they're my friends. And so I, like, I had an idea. I thought I knew maybe who he was going to pick. And so I certainly did. And I knew who ended up, you know, an exotic. So I was down to like the last two or three. Yeah. So I like, yeah, I did want to know.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
I've said like my curiosity got the best of me on that one, but generally I love coming home and having that one night a week where I get to come and see like how it's unfolding and what's happening. And I love having the conversation like with my friends after,
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
So I'm kind of like watching myself, but I feel like I know what I did. I'm actually really enjoying being able to watch the season because I see the guys interaction, which I don't see because they're like in the mansion and I don't really see them together unless we're on a group date. So that's the part that is like really exciting and fun for me to watch.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Yeah. You know, it's, It was really hard to verbalize the way I was feeling because I came into the season and people kept saying, are you 100% ready to find love? And I kept saying, yeah, I am, I am. And I actually thought I was being truthful. And then as I started having feelings for some of the men, so I actually started developing these feelings
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
relationships where maybe i would fall in love with them then all of a sudden i got like like oh my god how am i gonna do this i still like i still love john and um that seemed like i couldn't exist both those things couldn't happen i couldn't fall in love with somebody else and still love john and um i actually had to go and have a session with the psychiatrist so bachelor nation provides a psychiatrist
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
at the mansion and for everybody that's on the show. And so I had a meeting with the site. There's two of them. I had a meeting with both of them actually. And they said, you know, you should, you don't have to let go of John. And they said, picture that you have a balloon in each hand. One is John. And one is this person that you're developing feelings for.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
You don't have to let go of this balloon to hold onto this one. And that was like all I needed. I just needed to know that I didn't have to let like, John didn't have to be cleared out of my heart and my mind to let somebody else in. Like there's room for him and another person. And I really liked that. Yeah. Nothing else came out of the season. The fact that I got that.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
kind of relief and that gift that I was, it's okay to be that way. Yep. That permission that, you know, that was like the greatest thing that can happen. And I keep sharing that story. So other people know that too, because it's like a really important thing for people to realize. Cause I don't know. I just didn't innately know that I didn't think it was possible.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
And then like, oh yeah, it's fine. And I'm just like, oh, thank goodness.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
I didn't feel guilty necessarily about dating. I felt like I was guilty that I wasn't
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
honoring his memory like you know if you were really so in love I like I had this vision or this thought in my mind if I was so in love how could I then fall in love again and like I had this guilt that you know people were going to doubt that I was really in love with John and I wasn't honoring his memory by wanting to have another love in my life so I had to really work through those feelings and you know the bottom line was John told me right before he passed away like three days before he passed away that he wanted me to find somebody else and he wanted me to be happy and
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Like, you know, I heard from them like how much they bonded and how it was a kind of like therapy for them and what good friends they become. But I'm finally like actually getting to see the interaction.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
And at the time I was like, don't talk like that. You're not going anywhere. And it took me like a year to realize what a gift that was that he gave me because he gave me the ability to say, I don't have to feel guilty about this. He wanted, he wants me to be happy and he doesn't want me to mourn my whole life.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
No, we didn't have apps. We didn't even have cell phones as a matter of fact. So there were no apps. Yeah, dating has changed. I really completely, and I'm not positive it's in a great way. So there was a time where I thought, oh, like texting is really unique and it's great because you can have conversations with people and you can have it like when it's good for you.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
You don't have to always be on your phone. You can have a conversation. You don't have to pick up a phone and talk to somebody when it's convenient for them, not necessarily convenient for you. But what I feel like I really noticed, and this was even my dating experience, not just my kids, is that you don't really develop a real relationship.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Like you can be kind of a different person when you're texting. You have time to think of the witty replies and you have time to... make your life seem maybe more interesting. When you're face-to-face with somebody, you get way different things. You get the authentic them that doesn't have time to think about their answers, which is better, I think. And you also figure out if you have a chemistry.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
And I don't think you can do that via text. Like somebody can be really witty and interesting and like a person you think you're falling in love with. And then you can walk into a restaurant to meet them and find out that that was totally untrue. And you wasted a lot of time.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Yeah, so as far as the cameras, they kind of become like a white noise, like a background. They're around you all the time. And, you know, you're mic'd up from the time you get up kind of in the morning. And, you know, they're catching, they want to catch the interactions between the man and, you know, each other and them and myself. And it just becomes...
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
like you don't really notice them after a while and that's kind of good because you let your guard down a little bit i think in the beginning i was really careful especially when i was on the golden bachelor that i didn't want to be like depicted as being foolish or um like not dignified in dating at this age so i was a lot more careful but then as like the time went on that kind of
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
I knew that the producers and that, you know, had a pure, like they really wanted us to succeed and they didn't want to make us look foolish, that like they really wanted to make us look good and give people hope and show people that dating at this age is fun and not undignified. So that kind of left my mind.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
And once I was relieved of that worry, I was a lot more open on camera and I really wasn't worried. I didn't think that they were, you know, there was going to be some way that they could make me look not like me. And as far as the dates, the one-on-one dates, we choose them completely. They tell us what the date is and we have an input even to what dates we would like.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
In fact, before the season even films, they asked me like what kind of dates I would like to do. They asked me what kind of guy I would like. They asked me what kind of dates I would like to do. And then they just kind of arrange them and you get to pick who goes on them.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Way better than I ever thought. Yeah. I mean, they're epic. They're big. I'd be like, oh, I'd like to go on a helicopter. Well, I went on a helicopter to a winery. They make it a lot of fun.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
I guess most exciting may have been the Las Vegas date where I got to go on a private jet. Well, first I drove my red Porsche convertible to the airport for our private jet that brought us to Las Vegas to a suite where they had racks of clothes for us to try on to wear to our date that night. And in the meantime, as we're just finishing trying on clothes, Wayne Newton comes in and serenades us.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Yeah, that was crazy. So that was like a pretty epic date.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
I still, I like watching the younger ones too. I love to watch, see what their outfits are. I like the places they go. I do feel like some of the interaction is really genuine and I like to see like how their love evolves or how their feelings evolve. I think it's really interesting. I do think there is some drama and like, that's just bound to happen generally.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
I mean, I'm very surprised it doesn't, it didn't happen even in the older houses just because like in the golden series, because when you're living in a house with somebody and you're interacting in so many different You know, different ways, like, you know, you get the group dates and then you're living together and you're sleeping and the guy next door. Jealousy and everything else.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
Lack of sleep. I'm surprised that people aren't getting a little more maybe irritated with each other. But I think you're right, you know, as an adult and. You know, you learn to push your feelings down if you're like a little aggravated and you have a lack of sleep and you're tired of this guy that is going after the girl you like. You just kind of get over it.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
It's very different. So it's certainly very different from the first process when I found John or when I was looking for a husband because I was looking for somebody to start a family with and to start a life with and build your first house and do all those things. And now I have a life. I've built it already. I like it. And I want to be with somebody who likes their life.
Excuse My Grandma
Please Excuse My Grandma and the Golden Bachelorette
It doesn't really happen quite as well in the, you know, the younger bachelor and bachelorettes.