Paulina Porizkova on 'The Golden Bachelor' and why midlife love deserves better onscreen

Yahoo

11 hours ago

The supermodel talks about what finding love again at 60 has looked like for her.
First things first: Paulina Porizkova is not interested in being a Golden Bachelor contestant.
The supermodel is newly engaged to TV writer Jeff Greenstein, so she's off the market. But when the new season lead of The Bachelor franchise spin-off, Mel Owens, shared his criteria of acceptable women he was interested in dating on the show, Porizkova, on paper, would have been disqualified by his standards.
She has graced the covers of Vogue, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit and countless other publications; she is also 60 and had double hip replacement surgery in 2024. But more: She has become an important voice in redefining aging. The No Filter: The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful author is outspoken about challenging outdated beauty ideals and calling out persistent double standards. So we brought The Bachelor brouhaha to her.
It all started when Owens, a 66-year-old NFL veteran turned lawyer, said on the In the Trenches sports podcast in June that he prefers to date women ages '45 to 60,' and told producers, 'If they're 60 or over, I'm cutting them.' He also told them 'to try to stay away from the artificial hips' too.
Owens has since walked back his comments, which sparked a backlash, telling Glamour he didn't understand the show's format or know the typical contestant age because he 'hadn't dated in 26, 27 years.' He finalized his divorce in December. His season of The Golden Bachelor premieres on Sept. 24.
Porizkova sees this debate as bigger than The Golden Bachelor. 'Women are so used to this dynamic that a 60-year-old [man] dating a 40- or 30-year-old [woman] is fine,' she tells Yahoo. 'If he's powerful and has money, then he can date any age he wants.'
But it raises a deeper question: Do men and women have different expectations of what love and companionship should look like in their golden years?
Starting over
The older man-younger woman relationship pairing has been spoon-fed for so long that it's normalized — and even romanticized.
It's the age-old story: The man is strong and successful, the woman is young and beautiful. And audiences have long lapped it up.
'It was not that long ago that the male actors were 30 years older [than their leading ladies] and nobody blinked,' Porizkova says. 'Like [Entrapment co-stars] Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sean Connery — he was old enough to be her grandfather practically, and that was fine.'
She argues that a more realistic portrayal of mature love is missing in shows and movies, particularly in rom-coms and romantic dramas. As someone who found love again in her late 50s, she wants to see more stories reflecting her life stage.
'This is why I [thought] that The Golden Bachelor — the original idea — was such a great one,' she says. 'There are a lot of people starting over … in midlife. 'Gray divorce' has a name, right? Let us see middle-aged people restarting. We actually restart from a much better place. Generally, we're smarter. We know what we want and what we don't want. It makes it harder to pick because a lot of [men] on offering are like the Golden Bachelor.'
The reality of dating after 60
According to Pew Research Center data on single Americans in 2020, men significantly outnumber women in the dating market: 61% of single men said they were currently looking to date or be in a relationship compared with just 38% of single women. Those differences are starker after 40: 71% of older women say they weren't looking to date right now, compared with 42% of men in the same age cohort.
A 2025 Pew Research study showed that women were more likely to be unpartnered later in life: 51% of women over 65 were single compared with 29% of men over 65.
That helps explain why someone like Owens is looking to settle down again. Plus, it underscores the gender imbalance in the dating pool for that demographic.
Barbara Greenberg, a clinical psychologist, tells Yahoo that older men in age-gap relationships often feel a renewed sense of vitality. Dating a younger partner — particularly after long marriages with women closer in age — can feel like a fresh start, bringing with it the excitement of new possibilities, including the possibility of more children.
'It's the ability to feel young again,' she says. 'And, frankly, who doesn't want to feel younger?'
Owens's ex-wife is reportedly 19 years younger, suggesting he may already be accustomed to dating outside of his age bracket.
Still, the way society views an older man dating a younger woman — compared with the reverse — remains rooted in a double standard.
'When we see an older man and a younger woman, we think of a man who probably has a lot of financial stability and a woman who … has a lot of energy, youth and vibrancy,' says Greenberg. 'It's: 'Oh, they [must] have fun together.''
The perception shifts when it's an older woman and a younger man. ''What is psychologically wrong with her?'' she says of the bias. 'We think about it as a mother-son kind of thing [or that] the guy is using her for her money, even if she's beautiful and brilliant.'
We've seen this play out in pop culture, including earlier this year when Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy star Renée Zellweger defended the title character's relationship with a younger man. But whether it's Nicole Kidman in 2024's Babygirl, Sally Field in 2015's Hello, My Name Is Doris, Cate Blanchett in 2006's Notes on a Scandal or Anne Bancroft in 1967's The Graduate, the older women are often portrayed as seductive, sad or delusional.
Real-life couple Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who have a 23-year age gap, have also drawn public skepticism, even now 13 years into their marriage.
Meanwhile, more couples are divorcing after 50 than before, with the rate for that age range doubling between 1990 and 2010. USA Today recently explored the idea of 'menodivorce' — or women leaving relationships around the time of menopause or perimenopause. With more than half of women over 65 single, it suggests there's far less urgency to repartner compared with men. In general, women are also happier being single than men, research has shown.
'Women seem more likely to be comfortable with their independence,' Greenberg says about gray dating. 'Maybe at this point, they want to focus on taking care of themselves, their friendships, their careers, whatever they have going on.'
A second chance at an equal partnership
For her part, Porizkova never thought she'd say 'I do' again after splitting from husband Ric Ocasek of the Cars in 2018. In 2023, she started dating Greenstein, 61, and the TV writer proposed in July.
'Before I met Jeff, I was steadfast about … never getting married again,' she says. 'What changed my mind was understanding that I had never truly been in a proper relationship before. I finally found my equal. And a big part of that is because I figured out who I was.'
Heading into this marriage in her 60s, Porizkova brings a perspective she didn't have the first time.
'When you get married when you're very young, you're very hopeful and you're very naive about what marriage is,' says Porizkova, who met Ocasek — 21 years her senior — at 19 and married him when she was 24. 'I was filled with dreams: 'This is forever. Yes, we should absolutely merge our money … because we will never get divorced, even though he was divorced twice before me.''
Looking back, Porizkova says, 'I was a child when we met, so I didn't know any better. I was looking for a parental figure, and that … worked out well for me for a while.'
That early relationship gives her insight into the appeal of age-gap dynamics and potential limitations. It's also taken her to where she is today.
'I'm somebody who grew up much too fast in certain ways and not at all in others, so it's taken me 60 years to reach a balance,' she says. 'It's amazing when you reach that balance, and then you can find a person that suits that balance.'
Time to tell the full story
Of course, it doesn't mean all age-gap relationships are destined to fail.
Fifteen years ago, Greenberg says she 'was very skeptical' of May-December couplings, but her perspective has shifted after seeing some of these relationships succeed and bring genuine happiness to both partners.
What she sees as crucial, however, is that couples have candid conversations early on about their future goals, values and the separate aging paths they're on. She wishes those kinds of honest moments showed up on TV and in films.
'They leave out that the older person is going to develop health issues, possible [changes in] sexuality or just slow down while the younger person still wants to go on trips and do things,' Greenberg says.
'Aging issues — that's what gets overlooked,' says Greenberg. 'What's going to happen in two, three decades?'
Porizkova says she's disappointed that The Golden Bachelor — which began with the promise of casting contestants over 65 — has veered into what she views as 'sensationalism,' with viewers tuning in to see him get a choice of beautiful women much younger than him. Meanwhile, the final list of contestants has yet to be announced, so it's unclear if producers even followed his criteria.
She adds with a wink, 'I [hope] producers have thrown in lots of women with hip replacements [and] he won't find out until he's hooked.'
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