The Golden Bachelorette had some emotional farewells during its first six episodes, but Fantasy Suite Week undoubtedly featured Joan Vassos’ most devastating goodbye yet.
After Joan and her final three men flew to Tahiti for highly-anticipated overnight dates, the Golden Gal explored Moorea with Guy Gansert, Chock Chapple, and Pascal Ibgui. In Joan’s mind, her connections were stronger than ever. But before she handed out the final Fantasy Suite invite, early fan-favorite Pascal self-eliminated after realizing he wasn’t in love with her.
“I care very much about you, and the last thing I wanted to do is to hurt you, and I just don’t think I could get at the place where you want me to be,” Pascal told Joan shortly after the evening portion of their date began. “I’m having a very difficult time, because I know what love is. I’ve experienced it. You’ve experienced it. And I care about you as a friend, but I’m not in love. I just can’t be there, and it’s hurting me, because we’re having a good time together. We laugh, we seem like we connect, but I need that spark, and I just don’t have it. I’m sorry. I thought I could move forward, and I’m just — I’m not ready.”
A disappointed Joan told Pascal, “I don’t want a broken heart at the end of this. And if you’re not ready, it’s one thing. If you’re never going to be ready, that’s a different thing… It’s OK. I wish you were ready, but if you’re not, you’re not. And I can’t force that.”
Pascal apologized again, assuring Joan that he cared about her deeply, and the leading lady told him she would be OK, which hurt him even more. “I know it’s not OK. When you get hurt, you try to overcome it by saying, ‘Oh, I’m OK. It’s OK,’ to try to protect yourself. But I could see it, I could feel it — the way she was holding my hand, I know she was not OK,” he told cameras. “I’m not OK. I’m not OK! I hate to hurt people. I’m hurt right now. I’m hurt and I’ve heard her, and I feel terrible about that.”
As Joan processed the unexpected breakup, she and Pascal walked out together and he told cameras to “get away” from her. Before he left, he hugged Joan tight, told her to be safe, take care of herself, and remember that he’s only a phone call away. Just like that, Pascal was gone. But as Episode 7 showed, his uncertainty had been growing stronger all week.
Before the big date, Pascal sat down with host Jesse Palmer to talk through his reservations and revealed a past relationship was still weighing on him. “I was very much in love with a woman about a year ago. I was almost engaged…We had that fire in us, you know? We’d look at each other, and we knew we had what it takes. We we had two years of wonderful experiences, and then that start changing,” Pascal explained. “We break up once, and we went back together. We break up twice, and went back together. The third time we break up, and I said, ‘It’s done. We can’t keep doing that’…and I decided to move on. She’s still there…”
Though Pascal wanted to turn the page on that relationship for Joan, he was admittedly having trouble. “I’m at the stage where I’m trying to rebuild. From the outside, I look all fun and funny all the time… but I’m hurting. It’s hard to open up. I come from a fucked up background, you know? My childhood has been very difficult…people look at me with my fancy car, my fancy clothes, and my French accent and lifestyle, and they say, ‘Oh, God. This guy!’ They don’t know where I come from. They have no idea,” he said.
After his heart-to-heart with Jesse, Pascal and Joan met up and watched La Ora Na, a Tahitian welcoming ceremony, before enjoying a Tahitian feast and learning more about the culture. Pascal was speaking French, laughing, and feeling comfortable in the casual setting — then a traditional Tahitian bonding ceremony changed everything.
The ceremony required Pascal and Joan to get serious and vulnerable about their past, present, and future — something Pascal definitely wasn’t ready for. “I thought we’d have something more casual — just being silly, being kids again — not something where we have to talk about our feelings,” he told cameras. “I wasn’t ready for that. I appreciate the thought behind it, and I did my very best to to show her who I am. But my wall is still up, and I’m guarded. I’m scared, and I’m not ready. I’m not ready for that. I’m not — I’m not ready.”
Before Pascal broke things off with Joan later that night, she told him that although she’s not looking for a replacement, he reminded her a lot of her late husband, who lived life big and made her feel like anything was possible. Joan said Pascal checked “a million boxes” and had an exciting zest for life, so after their emotional parting, she broke down for cameras, admitting, “If I’m gonna be honest, it hurts the way he said it. When he said, ‘I know what true love is, and I don’t feel that for you,’ it made me know that he knew how to love, and he just couldn’t — I wasn’t lovable.”
“It’s hard to be vulnerable again once you’ve been hurt, so the walls are up again, and I feel like a failure. I had, gradually along this journey, started feeling more and more hopeful,” Joan continued. “Now my hope is down to nothing. I had 24 people here in the beginning. I’m down to the last three, and I might end up with nobody…Will anybody love me feel now? It just makes me feel like I’m unlovable.”
Next week, Pascal and other fan-favorite Golden Guys will reflect on their Golden Bachelorette journey during the Men Tell All event, so hopefully he and Joan will get additional closure before the finale airs.
Pascal was a real character and The Golden Bachelorette‘s debut season wouldn’t have been nearly as lovable without him. Joan’s heart may be unsure at the end of Episode 7, but she has two guys left who seem all in on a future with her. So there’s still a chance for a happy ending!
New episodes of The Golden Bachelorette premiere Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. on ABC.