While it seemed as though Joan Vassos, the titular star of The Golden Bachelorette, had a pretty respectable pool of suitors to choose from on this season’s premiere episode of the show, it turns out one suitor has a troubling background that managed to slip through the cracks. Gil Ramirez, who received a rose from Vassos on the show’s first episode, has an alleged history of stalking and harassment, including a restraining order filed against him as recently as June 11, 2024.
Despite producers’ attempts to thoroughly vet Ramirez, a source close to the ABC series stated that, “this filing occurred in the brief period between completion of our thorough background investigation and exhaustive vetting process, and the beginning of production,” per People.
The accusations against 60-year-old Ramirez were made by a former girlfriend who filed a temporary restraining order against him citing “harassment — emotional.”
The woman, who states she was not physically harmed by Ramirez, filed a request for a domestic violence restraining order as a result of persistent harassment.
“Despite telling him to not contact me, come to my house — he made repeated unwanted contact with me, family members and friends,” the document reads. “Twenty-five attempts daily via phone, texts, video. Although lives an hour away — showed up at places I frequent to confront me on a daily basis.”
After a court hearing on July 24, the charges were dropped. The source further clarified that the show is attempting to limit Ramirez’s exposure and screen time saying that the show has “edited his already limited screen time and minimized him in promotional assets moving forward,” People reports.
The news of Ramirez’s restraining order comes the same week that The Bachelorette‘s Devin Strader was confirmed to have also gotten a restraining order placed against him. Strader’s ex-girlfriend accused him of burglarizing her apartment in 2017, after which he was arrested and plead guilty on charges of criminal trespass and simple criminal damage to property. He received one year of unsupervised probation.
