Golden Bachelor Season 2 Lead Announced as NFL Veteran Mel Owens
Looking for a touchdown in love! The Golden Bachelor has found its leading man for season 2 in former NFL player Mel Owens, Disney announced.
Mel’s casting was revealed during Disney Entertainment Television’s inaugural Get Real event on Tuesday, April 22.
Unlike previous seasons of many of The Bachelor franchises, the new season of The Golden Bachelor did not choose one of Golden Bachelorette Joan Vassos‘ former suitors to lead season 2.
Mel is a divorced dad who is “ready to rediscover a love rooted in the simple joys of companionship –sharing life’s everyday moments, making plans for the future, and growing stronger together as a couple,” Disney said about what the former athlete is looking for in a relationship.
The announcement added that Mel is “eager to meet someone who shares this vision” and “finally find that perfect teammate he’s been waiting for in his golden years.”
Mel was a standout player at the University of Michigan before being drafted into the NFL. The linebacker played all nine of his seasons in the league for the Los Angeles Rams starting in 1981.
After retiring from the NFL, Mel transitioned to a career in finance, earning his Series 7 License and worked at Merrill Lynch as a financial advisor.
Mel went on to earn his Juris Doctor at the University of California at San Francisco – Hastings School of Law. In 2006, he began working as a founding partner at the Orange County, California, law firm of Namanny, Byrne and Owens. The firm specializes in representing professional athletes with workers compensation issues.
Mel’s bio on the firm’s site notes that he’s also a “lecturer in the field of workers’ compensation, sports law, sports injuries and disability benefits.”
Away from work, Mel channeled his energy into being a good dad to the two sons he shares with his ex-wife, as his casting announcement shared that he coached their extracurricular sports teams.
The former Michigan Wolverines player raved about how his sons enrolling in Orange County’s CRS Sports and Fitness Academy was the best thing he did to help them prepare for high school and college sports, Mel revealed in a video shared by the academy on April 7.
“This is the coaching that I want for my boys. This is gonna be a great foundation for them to go high school,” he stated with great intensity.
“You’re around like-minded kids and expectations are high, and the drive is high and you gotta perform every single day,” Mel continued.
Both of Mel’s sons ended up getting baseball scholarship offers to Ohio State and Oklahoma State, respectively, as he added, “When my boys left here, they were ready. The proof is in the pudding.”
Mel is following in the footsteps of The Golden Bachelor season 1 lead Gerry Turner.
The retired restaurateur and widower seemingly had a fairy tale ending with final rose recipient Theresa Nist in 2023. Following a romantic proposal on Gerry’s season finale, the duo married in a televised wedding on ABC in January 2024.
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Things quickly fell apart, as the pair announced their split during an April 12, 2024, appearance on Good Morning America.
“Theresa and I have had a number of heart-to-heart conversations, and we’ve looked closely at our situation, our living situation and so forth, and we’ve kind of come to the conclusion mutually that it’s probably time for us to dissolve our marriage,” Gerry, 73, said at the time.
Theresa, 71, added that distance played a big role in the split, as she resided in New Jersey and Gerry was settled into his life in a lakefront house in Indiana. She said they “looked at home after home, but we never got to the point where we made that decision.”
“The thing that strikes me the most in our conversations, it’s been how dedicated both of us are to our families,” Gerry explained. “So, we look at these conversations and we both think it’s best for the happiness of each of us to live apart.” The former couple’s divorce was finalized in June 2024.