The reality TV show “Bachelor, a single gentleman”, launched in 2003, ended on M 6 in 2016, after six seasons of romantic encounters. Eight years later, the French channel will be the first to offer on June 27 at 9:10 p.m. the senior version called “Golden Bachelor” and coming from the United States where it is a hit until it becomes a “phenomenon”.
The concept is simple: replace the young suitors and the “gentleman” with older people, while retaining the usual mechanism of the format. The faithful from the beginning will thus find the famous rose ceremony (during which the bachelor chooses those who will continue the adventure), the beautiful villa found here in the South of France, the zooms on each of the protagonists. And the same host.
The flagship face of the Six, Stéphane Rotenberg, who piloted the first three seasons of “Bachelor”, from 2003 to 2005, will present this new edition. “Being with people who are sixty and over really changes everything,” he stressed during a press conference. The bachelorettes? “We feel that they are not going to start an influencer career tomorrow.”
The former business manager and his twenty suitors
Chosen from among 3,000 applications, Landry, 60, a former business manager turned consultant, will make the hearts of twenty candidates in search of true love beat faster. Aged 55 to 67, they all come from different regions and social backgrounds. Widowed since 2006, the single father of three children aged 20, 25 and 31 says he wants to “take time for himself” now that his children are grown up, and “fall in love again”.
Landry “didn’t know the concept of the show,” he swears. But I was willing to take risks.” According to him, “the beginnings were difficult”, with the simultaneous meeting of twenty women in front of the cameras. But “the more the experience progressed, the easier it became.”
If this new Bachelor has a few gray hairs, he is nonetheless “very handsome man”. ” He is magnificent ! » the candidates were ecstatic when they met him, according to the first images we were able to view. The converse is true, and the choice will not be easy.
“I was touched by the sincerity and authenticity due to age,” admitted Stéphane Rotenberg. “The phrasing” of the participants also surprised him. “The bachelorettes have a lot of humor, a lot of self-deprecation,” insisted the presenter who also noted “a generational solidarity” among these ladies. “They have gone through hardships” in their lives and view competition differently.
The proportion of single people is increasing depending on the age group, reaching 22.8% among those aged 55-64, and up to 48% among those over seventy. Objective of the “Golden Bachelor”: to encourage seniors to embrace this new period of their lives where there is no question of drawing a line under romance. And, in passing, spread a “message of hope for young people” because life does not end at 60.
