Golden Bachelor Mel Owens "shocked" to learn women over 60 lead fulfilling lives

In Owens’ defense, he apparently “didn’t know anything” about the show on which he had been cast, as he insisted several times in a new interview with Glamour. It took his friend—a 65-year-old woman who somehow managed to maintain a career as a “hot shot” lawyer without shriveling up the second she turned 61—to explain that his comments may have been a bit insensitive. “I didn’t know the age range because I wasn’t watching it,” he reiterated. “I’m thinking, to me, the age range was 45 to 60. That’s my age range.” (Again, this man is 66.) “My reference, again, was when I was dating at 39, 40,” he continued. “I hadn’t dated in 26 years, so I had no clue. And that’s why I said that comment. I didn’t know.”

Contestants with fake hips can also rest a little easier; Owens represents people with injuries, and “a lot of them have artificial [hips and knees]… so I know that people have them.”  He also said he apologized to the women in-person on the first day he entered the mansion, which he wanted to do before addressing his comments publicly. “I said, ‘It was unfair, insensitive. I want to earn it back. Just give me the chance,'” Owens recalled, admitting that the contestants roasted him a lot in the aftermath. At least he seems to be growing a bit from the experience. “It was good because I earned that, and I took it and I deserved it, and it landed squarely on me,” he said.

It also sounds like he learned some valuable lessons about women in general. “I’m absolutely shocked at the women,” he said, before elaborating when pressed that he was specifically shocked by “how active they are. They’re brilliant. They’re brilliant. It’s shocking how brilliant they are.” 

When his interviewer responded that women have “always been brilliant,” Owens had the following to say: “But no, I’m talking about collectively… I have a sister. And I’m at the court, and there’s tons of lawyers there, of course, but the things they do, like one was a bomb squad person and there’s a couple dentists, a doctor, a motocross racer, a flight attendant for 40 years. You have all these varied professions. And they’re not 40. They’re 60, 65, maybe 70. And they go, ‘Oh, I’m still working. I’m still riding. I have my practice.’ So there it is. It’s right in front of you.” Insightful stuff. It’s not exactly America Ferrera’s Barbie monologue, but we all have to start somewhere!