The Bachelor Universe’s Most Memorable DC-Area Figures

Maryland resident Joan Vassos will lead the inaugural season of the ABC reality show The Golden Bachelorette, which starts September 18. She’s not the first local to make an impression in the Bachelor universe.

Joan Vassos

Rockville

The Golden Bachelor season 1, The Golden Bachelorette season 1

Before she became the Golden Bachelorette, Vassos caused a stir when, as a contestant on The Golden Bachelor, she quit to tend to her newborn grandchild.

John Paul Jones

Lanham

The Bachelorette season 15, Bachelor in Paradise season 7

This unicycle-riding contestant had a surfer vibe–host Chris Harrison compared him to Jeff Spicoli. But Jones lived in Prince George’s County, not Southern California.

Ashley Iaconetti

Great Falls

The Bachelor season 19, Bachelor in Paradise seasons 2 and 3, The Bachelor Winter Games

She was known for crying. On Bachelor in Paradise, she tearfully told a parrot about her feelings for fellow contestant Jared Haibon. “This is worth crying over, right?” she asked the bird. Apparently it was: The pair wed in 2019.

Caelynn Miller-Keyes

Fredericksburg

The Bachelor season 23, Bachelor in Paradise season 6

This Miss USA runner-up clashed with other women, who accused her of the greatest Bachelor sin: campaigning to be the Bachelorette. She didn’t win, but Miller-Keyes found her love story in Paradise, when she and contestant Dean Unglert fled the island together to pursue a real-world relationship.

This article appears in the September 2024 issue of Washingtonian.

Omega Ilijevich

Editorial Fellow