He is among 24 men who will date Joan Vassos on the coming season of the ABC-TV reality show.
A new promo for the first season of “The Golden Bachelorette” begins with a Minnesota-raised man: Mark Anderson, 57, comes around the corner, smiling.
Anderson is among 24 men who will date Joan Vassos on the ABC-TV reality show, a spinoff of the hit “Golden Bachelor” that premieres in September. The youngest of the cast, released Tuesday, Anderson is best known as “Kelsey’s hot dad.”
The widower caught fans’ attention during the most recent season of “The Bachelor,” appearing on the show to support his daughter, Kelsey, who got engaged to star Joey Graziadei. Anderson, who now lives in Louisiana, grew up in Minnesota and North Dakota.
In a video posted Tuesday, a producer asks Anderson: “Do you have any dad jokes?”
“Well, how much time do you have,” he replies with a big laugh.
His ABC bio describes him as an Army veteran whose five children are “his greatest accompaniment.” But he’s also a Vikings fan, a Girl Scout dad and a cross-country skier, he said in an April interview.
He also said that he’d watched “The Golden Bachelor,” which featured people who had lost a spouse through death or divorce, and thought, “Wow, this is actually pretty inspiring.”
“Dating sites aren’t…” he trailed off. “Traditional ways of dating aren’t really applicable anymore. I’m not 21 anymore. Where do you go and find somebody my age? How do you meet?”
During an April phone interview, Anderson, then 56, called himself “too young for “Golden.” The “Golden Bachelor” cast daters in their 60s and 70s. Gerry Turner, the first star, was 72.
Vassos is a 61-year-old grandmother, school administrator and widow who left Turner’s season to be with her daughter who had given birth.
In the new promo, Anderson said he connected with Vassos’ story: “Knowing that Joan had lost her husband, there’s an understanding that I have of things that she went through.”
