Mel Owens' First Impression Rose recipient, Gerri Flowers, has admitted people tried to convince her not to go on The Golden Bachelor after Mel made controversial podcast comments.
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"I said [to an executive producer], 'You know, if they're 60 or over, I'm cutting them,'" Mel said on the "MGoBlue" podcast with Jon Jansen at the time.
Bachelor Nation expressed outrage and disgust over Mel's "ageist" and "superficial" remarks on social media, and there was a brief period of time when fans thought ABC was going to replace him as the show's leading man.
Gerri acknowledged that she heard Mel's podcast comments and was taken aback by it before filming began in July.
"I was like, 'Hmm, what's up with that?' And then, you know, there were rumors that they were getting rid of him and they had a new [Golden Bachelor]," Gerri shared during the September 30 episode of the "Bachelor Happy Hour: Golden Hour" podcast.
"And I was like, 'You know what? I'm going!' Because some people said, 'Oh, you shouldn't go! Why are you going?'"
Gerri said these people weren't even sure if she was going to be one of Mel's official Golden bachelorettes.
"They were just talking; they didn't know what was going on," Gerri explained.
"They didn't even know I was going to be on the show. They didn't know. And I was like, 'Come on, guys, let's give him [a break].'"
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When speaking with the "Golden Hour" podcast's co-hosts Kathy Swarts and Susan Noles, Gerri said she "chose to accept" Mel's apology on Night 1.
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"I was just like, 'Don't ask me [about it in interviews]. I don't want to hear about it again. It's behind me,'" Gerri said. "And he was very sincere and very humble."
Kathy said she was hoping The Golden Bachelor viewers would give Mel "grace," just like his senior bachelorettes clearly chose to.
"Because how many times, personally, I can speak, have you said some stupid things off the cuff? And I think when he saw you women, I think it was a slap in his face," Kathy said.
Gerri said she agreed with Kathy "150 percent," especially because all of the women have such beautiful hearts, in her opinion.
"I saw their hearts... and they all really accepted his apology. I felt that very sincerely," Gerri noted.
Susan, for her part, admitted she had judged Mel earlier this summer and "didn't like what he had to say" in his pre-show interview.
"Hearing him and being humble, I really was grateful for the forgiveness that you women gave him," Susan noted. "You let him start over for this journey he wanted to go on."
Susan also insisted that she had a totally different take on Mel after watching the Season 2 premiere.
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"We all open our mouths and insert foot from time to time," Susan quipped.
"I do it a lot," Gerri confessed.
Before The Golden Bachelor premiered its second season on ABC, Mel told Glamour magazine that his podcast comments were "unfair" and "insensitive."
Mel owned up to having made a mistake, and he said, "I want to earn it back. I have to earn it back every single moment that I'm on the show... The spirit has no age. It's true. And also, you can change. That's the key. It is not too late to change."
At the cocktail party preceding the first Rose Ceremony of The Golden Bachelor's new season, Mel apologized to all the women for offending them and hurting their feelings.
Mel pointed out how age is just a number and he didn't mean what he had said, especially after meeting such beautiful and impressive women over the age of 60. The oldest woman in Mel's cast was 77.
Mel begged for everyone's forgiveness and asked them to give him a second chance, and it appears everyone chose to.
Mel was shown giving his First Impression Rose to Gerri, and he ousted a whopping 10 women -- including a 77-year-old woman named Andra Mason -- over the course of two Rose Ceremonies.
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
