“I had a wonderful life with my late husband, and I loved being married.”
In case you couldn’t tell by all the coverage, we’ve been counting down the days until Joan Vassos embarks on her journey to finding love on The Golden Bachelorette. Joan is looking for the second love of her life, after her husband of 32 years passed away from cancer in 2021. There’s little we adore more than a second-chance-at-love story, but before we can root for someone new, we have to get to know Joan’s past love. So we’re diving deep into her first marriage, and filling you all in on the juicy details.
How Joan Vassos met her husband
According to a recent New York Times profile, Joan met her husband John at a bar in Ocean City, Maryland, the summer before her junior year at the University of Maryland. She says she was more of a “wallflower” while he was outgoing and talkative. (In this case, we can safely say opposites do attract.) They got married when she was 25, in 1988.
John owned and operated BCE Corporation and CapX Solutions and coached youth football while Joan worked writing code for AT&T before later working as a school administrator.
Did Joan Vassos and her husband have children?
Joan and John had four children together: Nick, Erica, Ally, and Luke. Joan has two grandchildren. According to his obituary, “To say he was proud of his kids would be a massive understatement. They will carry on his legacy of generosity, his passion for life, and his love of family and friends!”
In an Instagram post on the third anniversary of John’s passing, Joan wrote, “He was the parent that was always the fun one because that’s all he knew how to do…lucky kids because fun in his book was generally epic.”
“I had a wonderful life with my late husband, and I loved being married,” she told Katie Couric Media a few months ago.
When and how did Joan Vassos’ husband die?
Joan told the NYT that one day in 2018, John said he was too sick to go to Wisconsin for one of their son Luke’s college lacrosse games, which was when she knew something was wrong. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on Valentine’s Day of that year. He underwent chemo and radiation but passed away in 2021 after a two-year battle with the disease.
Joan wasn’t ready to date again for about two years after her husband’s death, even though John had told her before passing that he hoped she’d eventually find another partner.
“Year one came and I wasn’t even close to ready,” she told Susan Noles and Kathy Swartz on the Bachelor Happy Hour: Golden Hour podcast. “Year two came around and I felt like I wasn’t getting any younger…I felt like I was wasting good, valuable time and really felt like I needed to start dating.”
She gave dating apps a try but didn’t have a great experience: “I don’t love the online dating,” she said on the podcast. “I don’t think people are super truthful. I had an online date where I walked into the restaurant to meet this man for a drink. I looked around and thought he wasn’t there yet, so I sat down at the bar and I see this man waving from across the bar at me. I look at him and he doesn’t look anything like his picture, he looks completely different.”
One night, after feeling particularly down, Joan turned on ABC and that’s when she saw the casting call for The Golden Bachelor. The rest is history!
Joan is looking for someone who has strong family values and who hopefully loves the beach, as she’s “happiest when she’s at the beach with her family,” according to her ABC bio. See how her journey for love plays out when The Golden Bachelorette premieres Sept. 18 at 8 p.m. Eastern on ABC.
