{"id":53359,"date":"2025-08-01T20:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T20:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/53359\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T20:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T20:38:08","slug":"golden-bachelor-mel-owens-apologizes-for-ageist-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/53359\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden Bachelor Mel Owens Apologizes For Ageist Comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tGolden Bachelor Mel Owens<\/a> is walking back his controversial comments about just how golden he wants his dates to be.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 66-year-old star of the upcoming senior dating show landed in hot water after a recent podcast in which he expressed preferences for only being receptive to women on the reality show who were between the ages of 45 and 60. \u201cIf they\u2019re 60 or over, I\u2019m cutting them,\u201d he said, in one of the most controversial statements.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut now, two months later, in a new Glamour magazine interview, Owens is apologizing, his new enlightenment coming after a conversation with a 65-year-old female friend.<\/p>\n

\n\tSays Owens, a former Los Angeles Rams NFL star, \u201cShe said, \u2018What you said was insensitive, and it\u2019s just not who you are.\u2019 My reference of dating was 39, 40 years old. I hadn\u2019t dated in 26, 27 years. That\u2019s what I told her. She goes, \u2018It doesn\u2019t matter. You\u2019ve said some things that are just incredibly wrong.\u2019 And I go, \u2018I\u2019ve got to apologize.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOwens insists his initial comments were not made with an intent to offend, but rather from a lack of understanding about the rule of the Golden Bachelor game. \u201cI didn\u2019t know anything about the Golden Bachelor<\/a> ages,\u201d he admitted. \u201cI didn\u2019t know the age range because I wasn\u2019t watching it. I\u2019m thinking, to me, the age range was 45 to 60. That\u2019s my age range. I\u2019m thinking that\u2019s the gold years for me. My reference, again, was when I was dating at 39, 40. I hadn\u2019t dated in 26 years, so I had no clue. And that\u2019s why I said that comment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOwens also notes in the interview that he apologized to the women contestants and took responsibility for his comments. \u201cI apologized to the women on the show. When I first walked in, I addressed it. I apologized to them. I said, \u2018It was unfair, insensitive. I want to earn it back. Just give me the chance.’\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tOwens also notes that the women on the show good naturedly roasted him with some choice words. \u201cOne said, \u2018Oh, when Mel was walking with me, he was using me as a cane.\u2019 And I\u2019m from Detroit, right? One said, \u2018Like a Detroit pizza, he\u2019s doughy, squishy, square, and crusty.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was good because I earned that,\u201d Owens tells the magazine, \u201cand I took it and I deserved it, and it landed squarely on me. They were throwing haymakers. It was good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Golden Bachelor is set to return this fall on ABC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Golden Bachelor Mel Owens is walking back his controversial comments about just how golden he wants his dates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88,27726,16058],"class_list":{"0":"post-53359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-mel-owens","11":"tag-the-golden-bachelor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}