‘The Golden Bachelor’s Joan Opens Up About Her Premature Departure: “My Daughter Had A Very Serious Case Of Postpartum Depression”

Six episodes in, Bachelor Nation has seen a fair share of heartbreaking Golden Bachelor goodbyes between Gerry Turner and his contestants, but Joan Vassos’ self-elimination in Episode 3 remains one of the show’s most emotional farewells yet.

The day after a romantic one-on-one dinner with Gerry, Joan received a concerning call from her daughter who recently had a C-section. Cameras caught Joan sobbing on the phone, and before we knew it the 60-year-old Private School Administrator from Rockland, Maryland was saying a tearful goodbye to her fellow contestants. Joan told Gerry she had to go be a mom and thanked him for giving her the first deep romantic connection she’d felt since her husband passed.

“I understand. I get it. But I can’t tell you how disappointed I am,” he said with tears in his eyes. “I was so excited this morning I was out of bed dancing. I was thrilled that we had a conversation like we did and there’s a moral compass that we both share and sometimes the right thing to do is the hardest.” The two hugged, cried, and said goodbye. Even after Joan left the mansion, Gerry remained outside sobbing.

Following the episode, Joan shared a statement on Instagram reiterating that although the decision to leave was unfortunate, she had no regrets as a mom. And during The Golden Bachelor‘s “Women Tell All” episode on Thursday, she joined host Jesse Palmer on stage to look back at her journey.

“That’s hard to watch,” Joan said after her Golden Bachelor supercut played. “I look at the journey that I left and it was so abrupt, and I feel like I had unfinished business and I didn’t see all that about Gerry at the end there and him crying like that. I feel really bad that I did that to him,” she said.

When the host asked how her daughter and granddaughter were doing, Joan assured Bachelor Nation “everything is great at home now” before sharing that her daughter “had a really serious case of postpartum depression.”

“She needed me. She needed her mom. And I didn’t think twice. I knew I had to be there. I heard it in her voice,” Joan explained. “I could not get on that plane fast enough, but as I went upstairs to pack the gravity of the whole thing kind of hit me — that I was leaving for good.”

Jesse asked about her final moments with Gerry, and Joan thought back to the one line that broke her heart. “Gerry was exactly as I thought he would be. And he said it so well, he said we both have the same moral compass and he would do the same thing, which then kind of made it even worse, because although he was trying to make me feel better I saw a glimpse of the person he was as a father and one more great thing about him. And I left there for the first time feeling like I saw a future with somebody,” she said.

For those wondering, if circumstances had been different and Joan had stayed on the show, she does think things could have worked out for her and Gerry in the end.

“I think we had a good chance. Gerry helped make me feel visible because he looked at me and he cared about what I was saying and he wanted to get to know me and it’s part of that whole conversation about being invisible. Society makes us feel like we’ve had our chance and we’ve raised our children and it’s time now to support the next generation and kind of take a backseat and Gerry opened my heart and I held out hope for a little while, honestly,” she explained. “And I did think a couple times maybe I would come around the corner or come home from work and he would be sitting on my front porch.”

When Gerry joined Jesse Palmer on the stage later in the evening, Joan got a chance to share some thoughts with him as well. “I feel like our journey ended really abruptly. I think it will always play in my mind what would have happened, but I see that you have connected with some people and I only wish the best for you,” she told Gerry. “And I want to say that I went from wanting to find somebody to like craving it now. It was such a great feeling, and I’m working hard to find it. I’m not giving up.”

Gerry and Joan might not have been endgame, but their journeys to find love aren’t over yet. Tune in to new episodes of The Golden Bachelor Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. on ABC to see how Gerry’s season wraps up. Episodes are available for next-day streaming on Hulu.