Mel Owens is correcting his recent fumble.
The former NFL star, 66, revealed that while filming this season of “The Golden Bachelor,” some of the contestants confronted him for his ageist remarks.
Owens had said in June that he refuses to date women over the age of 60.
“One of the dates was a roast. It was brutal,” he confessed to Glamour in an interview published on Friday. “They were killing me…. It was good.”
After all, Owens knows he was in the wrong for his comments.
“My reference of dating was 39, 40 years old,” he explained to the outlet. “I hadn’t dated in 26, 27 years. And at that point, I still hadn’t dated, so my reference was my age, basically. That’s what I told my friend.”
However, Owens’ pal didn’t agree with the attorney.
He added, “She goes, ‘It doesn’t matter. You’ve said some things that are just incredibly wrong.’ And I go, ‘I’ve got to apologize.’”
Owens also set the record straight on why he agreed to do the reality show despite not wanting to date anyone over 60.
“Because I didn’t know anything about ‘The Golden Bachelor’ ages,” he confessed. “I didn’t know the age range. To me, the age range was 45 to 60. That’s my age range. I go, ‘Oh, okay.’ So I’m thinking that’s the ‘gold’ years for me. My reference again was when I was dating at 39, 40. I hadn’t dated in 26 years, so I had no clue. And that’s why the comment. I didn’t know.”
While on the “MGoBlue Podcasts with Jon Jansen” in June, Owens also made the jab that he wasn’t interested in dating women with any artificial hips.
Looking back, the athlete regrets that statement.
“I know [that’s not right]. People run marathons. I’m an attorney, I represent athletes with injuries, and most of them are football, hockey, and a lot of them have artificial hips,” he went on. “I apologized to the women on the show. When I first walked in, I addressed it. I apologized to them. I said, ‘It was unfair, insensitive. I want to earn it back. Just give me the chance.’ And hopefully, these last two, three weeks, I earned some of that back.”
After Owens’ podcast appearance, fans called for the reality star to be recast. The news made its way back to Owens.
“My friend asked me, ‘Hey, are you getting replaced?’ I go, ‘Not that I know of,’” he recalled, admitting that he would have been upset if he had been.
“Looking back on it and looking forward, it’s a great experience,” Owens gushed. “It’s such a great experience for me, and so, oh yeah, I wouldn’t have wanted to be recast. But I’m going to earn it back just by being myself and being fair and apologetic and honest and be myself.”
Not everyone is so quick to give this year’s golden bachelor a second chance. Some fans shared they won’t be tuning in when Owens’ season airs next month.
But the California resident thinks that would be a mistake.
“Well, if you don’t tune in, you’ll never know,” Owens teased. “So you got to tune in. And again, I’m trying to earn it back. So, watch the show and see if I earn it back. Because I apologized.”
“To earn it back, you have to be earnest in your work to get the trust back,” Owens continued. “And everybody there is smart and they can see through you if you’re lying or you don’t mean what you say. That’s why I say tune in.”
Along with urging fans to turn on their televisions, the ABC star knows he deserved the criticism he received.
“But I deserved [the anger],” Owens added. “That was a mistake by me. It’s unfair. It’s insensitive, like I said. And I have to earn it back every single moment that I’m on the show.”
In June, Owens said he told producers his preferred age range is “45 to 60, just being honest.”
He also told them that “if they’re 60 or over, I’m cutting them. This is not ‘The Silver Bachelor,’ this is ‘The Golden Bachelor.’”
Owens revealed that the producers then told him, “‘You can’t use the word cut.’ I go, ‘Well, that’s an NFL term.’”
His comments were quickly faced with backlash.
“He doesn’t seem like the type for ‘in sickness and in health,’” one fan wrote on X, while a second chimed in: “Awful. I won’t watch with a jerk in the lead.”
A third social media user stated, “doesn’t sound like much of a mystery as to why he’s still a bachelor. Anyone who chooses to go on that show deserves whatever disaster they get.”
Owens was married to Fabiana Owens from 2002 to 2020, and the exes share sons Lucas (born in 2005) and Andre (born in 2007), according to Us Weekly.
The “Golden Bachelor” premieres on Wednesday, September 24 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.