Spoiler alert! This reveals who was eliminated from the Hometowns episode of The Golden Bachelor, which aired on the 2025 TV schedule on October 22. It can be streamed with a Hulu subscription if you’re not caught up.
It’s hard to believe that Mel Owens’ journey on The Golden Bachelor is close to coming to an end, but is the retired NFL player any closer to finding love? The 66-year-old attorney visited the hometowns of the three remaining women on Season 2 of the dating spinoff, and after a really unexpected elimination, I’m officially concerned about how this story ends.
Cindy Angelcyk, Debbie Siebers and Peg Munson made it to the Top 3 of The Golden Bachelor Season 2, and when Mel Owens paid visits to all of their families on the October 22 episode, I really thought Debbie’s was the only one that went off without a hitch. She confided in him a tragic story of losing her partner to suicide, and then her family put their full support behind the relationship.
That made it particularly devastating when the 65-year-old fitness professional was the one sent home at the end of the episode, as Mel Owens said:
Debbie is genuine, and she deserves love. To say goodbye is very, very difficult. My heart doesn’t feel OK with it. It just doesn’t.
That makes me nervous about Mel Owens finding lasting love by the end of his season — and let’s be honest, I was already skeptical of that after his comments about not wanting to date women over 60 in the first place. He just seemed so unsure when visiting with Cindy Angelcyk and Peg Munson’s families.
Peg’s daughter Dakota had trouble coaxing much of anything out of Mel Owens when he traveled to Las Vegas, and she had to prompt him to explain why he thought she was great (“I love her spirit.”) and what he thought about her energy (“Well it’s alive, right?”). Dakota looked further unimpressed when Mel said he wasn’t in love with the 62-year-old and didn’t know if he could get there. She told the camera:
I’m asking Mel some pretty direct questions. His responses aren’t necessarily putting me at ease. … Mel’s answers are not necessarily what I needed to hear for where they’re at in this process, nor do I think that that’s what my mom deserves, and I wish he was more sure about where his feelings were at with my mom. That worries me. So yeah, I’m a little skeptical.
In my opinion, he seemed marginally more engaged when visiting with Cindy Angelcyk’s family in Austin, Texas, describing the 60-year-old retiree as intelligent and sophisticated. It didn’t hurt that he learned she was a college football fan. However, when her daughter Sarah asked if he could potentially see himself with Cindy for the rest of their lives, he said:
I don’t know. I like your mom a lot, right? But I don’t know what’s going to unfold in the next few weeks or months or whatever. But I’ll let it come naturally. … I’m still getting to know her.
She, as well, expressed that she couldn’t get “a lot of straight answers” from him.
Typically at this point on any Bachelor franchise series, fans are freaking out over the lead saying “I love you” to multiple people, so it’s especially worrisome to me that he’s hesitant to express much of anything to his final two women — and perplexing why he sent Debbie home after their successful Hometown date.
It plays into my fear that Mel Owens simply has no interest in dating women his age, and this season was over before it started. For the record, I think Owens will propose — my guess is to Cindy, because they had an immediate connection on Night 1 — but as is so often the case with our Bachelor couples, it’s not going to last.
Will Mel prove me wrong? Tune in for the final episodes, airing at 9 p.m. Wednesdays on ABC, to find out.