‘Bachelor in Paradise' returns this summer with a ‘Golden' twist. Some fans say the franchise is trying to ruin a good thing with the change.
The beach is going to look a bit different this summer on Bachelor in Paradise.
During the After the Final Rose special on March 24, The Bachelor host Jesse Palmer announced that Season 10 of Bachelor in Paradise, which premieres this summer, will include alumni from its Golden Bachelor and Golden Bachelorette franchises.
"For the first time ever, Golden men and women will be hitting the beaches of Paradise alongside all of your Bachelor and Bachelorette favorites from seasons past," Palmer told the audience. "I don't know if I've ever been more excited for anything ever!"
Palmer then announced Golden Bachelor contestant Leslie Fhima and Golden Bachelorette contestant Gary Levingston as the latest cast members to join the beach-set spin-off.
Many fans have expressed an interest in seeing a Golden version of Bachelor in Paradise, and they're not alone: Palmer told Decider in 2024 that he'd be all for a Golden Bachelor in Paradise. Wells Adams, who is often in Paradise as the beach-side bartender, told the Hollywood Reporter in 2023 that he could see the spin-off happening.
Adams doubled down in February 2025, saying that he thinks "it's an amazing idea."
"Why can't we just have everyone come, and everyone can date everyone?" he told Us Weekly. "If you're not into a cougar, that's OK, different strokes for different folks."
Season 10 of Bachelor in Paradise will mark the spin-off's return after skipping a season in 2024. Details surrounding this season's format of Bachelor in Paradise as well as how producers plan on incorporating the Golden contestants is not clear at this time. (Neither ABC nor Warner Bros, which produces the show, responded to Yahoo Entertainment's requests for comment.) But fans have already taken to social media to share their initial reactions to the news — and many are skeptical.
On X, one Bachelor in Paradise fan wrote that there's 'nothing wrong' with the spin-off the way it is, and that producers shouldn't 'ruin a good thing.' Another wrote that including Golden contestants could ruin 'the best remaining thing about this franchise.'
News of the Bachelor in Paradise twist comes after Deadline reported on March 14 that showrunners and executive producers Claire Freeland and Bennett Graebner would be exiting the franchise after two years amid toxic workplace allegations. Freeland and Graebner's departure was the latest change to rock the reality TV dating series.
Steve Granelli, a communication studies professor at Northeastern University, told Yahoo Entertainment that the Bachelor franchise announcing the arrival of Golden contestants on Paradise is '100% strategic.' The limited amount of information revealed about the capacity these Golden alumni will appear in is also deliberate.
'It's now the first thing that people will be talking about with the Bachelor franchise,' he said. 'I believe it has something to do with trying to change the conversation about prior showrunners, about the allegations. I may be a cynic, but I believe it's calculated.'
Online, Bachelor Nation fans are equally jaded. More than not wanting to see 'senior citizens on the beach,' several fans have voiced their concerns that older men may try to pursue the younger women. The average age of male contestants on Joan Vassos's season of The Golden Bachelorette was 64 years old, while the average age of female contestants on Ellis's season of The Bachelor was 28 years old.
As with any Bachelor franchise show, Granelli expects this roster of Paradise contestants to feature a many types of personalities. Apprehension from fans, he said, likely stems from the fact that this twist can go 'in a bunch of different directions.'
'Like every episode of Bachelor in Paradise, there's a wide range [of contestants],' he said. 'There's the most controversial. There are the ones that are most liked that weren't picked. There are the ones that garner the most attention. So I imagine there's absolutely going to be one or two Golden contestants … having conversations with younger women. And whether they are salacious or not, I imagine that's going to be part of a storyline somewhere in the presentation of the show.'
Another possibility is that the Golden contestants and the younger contestants will all be present on the beach, but they won't be 'as enmeshed in the show as we expect them to be,' Granelli said. Instead, their journeys to find love could happen separately.
'The opposite could also be a storyline,' he said. 'Like, 'This is somebody who's just developing a very nice, kind of caring relationship with someone else.' I imagine they're going to do their best to present the gamut of types of relationships.'
Sending Golden contestants to the beach is perhaps another way the franchise is attempting to tackle its diversity issue. Premiering in 2023, The Golden Bachelor became ABC's highest-rated debut for an unscripted series in nearly two years and was praised for its visibility of seniors. The series wasn't perfect — The Golden Bachelor, which had Gerry Turner as its lead, was also criticized for reinforcing harmful stereotypes about aging.
The Golden Bachelorette premiered a year later, in 2024. The series premiere saw 2.8 million live viewers, making it one of the lowest premieres among ABC's The Golden Bachelor, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise, Forbes reported. Ratings aside, lead Joan Vassos was praised for her authenticity.
How these older contestants will be received by Bachelor in Paradise viewers, Granelli said, will largely depend on how the range of contestants' ages will be addressed on the show.
Granelli believes the twist can elicit one of two results. A large age gap between hopeful singles can be a 'stopping point' for communication because they are at such different points in their lives. It could also encourage contestants to 'learn about each other's experiences.'
'In the worst-case scenario, [the age gap] is cartooned,' he said. 'That would make for a base level of entertainment and TV for the lowest common denominator.'
Early fan reactions to the Paradise twist may be warranted, but Granelli doesn't think viewership will suffer. Fans will want to see how this one plays out. The producers have done their job in drumming up excitement for the upcoming season.
'I don't believe an ethical question or a question of morality is going to be a motivator to drive viewers away from the franchise,' he said. 'There's this potential that something more, something different, something crazier or something we haven't seen yet might happen [in Paradise.] That's what Jesse Palmer teased us with, with that promo. I don't imagine anybody hearing that and being like, 'I'm not going to watch.''
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