Meet the Contestants of “The Golden Bachelor” — Including Matt James’s Mom

The next installment in the Bachelor franchise will be just a little bit different. For the first time ever, a group of women between the ages of 60 and 75 will vie for the heart of a 71-year-old bachelor as part of “The Golden Bachelor,” a new show that will undoubtedly prove the quest for true love absolutely doesn’t end after 60 — and neither does the drama that can come with it.

On the show, 22 women will compete for the affection of Gerry Turner, a pickleball-loving septuagenarian who’s looking for love six years after his wife’s death. “What I look for at the age of 70 is different from what I looked for in high school and college,” Turner said during an appearance on the “Men Tell All” special from Charity Lawson’s recent season of “The Bachelorette,” per The Hollywood Reporter. “So, I believe I’ll find my person — the new person that will make me whole again. And I think we’ll knit a wonderful relationship. But I don’t think it’ll look like the relationship I had with Toni. And I don’t think it would be right to do it that way.”

On Aug. 30, ABC revealed the identities of each of the show’s contestants, who hail from everywhere from Los Angeles to New Jersey. One of them is 70-year-old Patty James, mother of Matt James, who was the Bachelor in the show’s 25th season. Matt appears to be pretty excited about his mom’s turn in the spotlight, as he shared his mom’s official photo from the show on his Instagram Story the day the news broke. He captioned it, “I ccc uuu mama 🔥”. He also commented several fiery heart emojis under his mom’s Instagram post about the show news.

Previously, during a 2021 “Good Morning America” appearance, Matt shared that his mom has a lot of the qualities he looks for in a life partner. “Everything that she sacrificed for myself and my brother to be in the position that we’re at, I want to be that for somebody else,” he said. “And the way that she loved myself and John is how I want to love somebody and how I want to be loved.”

Ahead, check out the series’ first teaser, and get to know the stars of “The Golden Bachelor” before its September premiere.