Once social media caught wind of the clips, Owens received a lot of backlash for his comments, even with Steven Carbone (known as Reality Steve online) reporting that Owens would be out “as the Golden Bachelor due to recent negative publicity surrounding his June 4th podcast appearance.”

"Golden Bachelor" star Mel Owens has acknowledged that his comments about only wanting to date women younger than him were "insensitive."

ABC’s Golden Bachelor has apologized over his comments about age preferences. In a new interview with Glamour, Mel Owens addressed the drama of when he said he was looking for women of a certain age when getting on the show — now he’s saying he “didn’t know that it hit that hard.”