Sean Lowe on The Golden Bachelorette, Gerry and Theresa’s Split

As the only final rose winner to marry the Bachelor (so far), it’s no surprise that Catherine Lowe was upset about Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist‘s quick divorce.

“She was a bit surprised,” Sean Lowe told Us Weekly during an exclusive interview about his partnership with Kevin’s Natural Foods. “Now, my wife is just this eternal optimist when it comes to love, and she definitely believes in happily ever after, and this is going to be a great love story. So I think, like a lot of viewers, she probably got sucked into this love story, and she kept telling me, ‘The Golden Bachelor is great because it’s so sweet, it’s so sincere. It’s not as risqué as the normal Bachelor,’ and all this stuff. And so I think she was caught off guard and probably a little sad that it did not work out, and especially [because] the duration was so short. That’s very surprising.”

Gerry and Theresa wed in January and announced their split three months later. While more than 50 Bachelor and Bachelorette alums attended the live nuptials, Sean and Catherine, who starred on season 17 of the ABC series, declined the invite.

“We didn’t go just because we had stuff going on, and frankly, I’ve never met Gerry or his fiancée [or] ex. … I never met her either, so I didn’t feel super compelled to go,” Sean explained to Us.

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Nine Bachelor Nation couples have tied the knot in a televised ceremony — with a 55.5 percent success rate. Trista Rehn and Ryan Sutter were the first Bachelor Nation couple to exchange vows in December 2003, with a reported 17 million viewers tuning in to watch the OG Bachelorette marry her final rose winner. Two […]

Sean noted that his current knowledge of the franchise all stems from Catherine. Us informed the former lead that his spouse previously told E! News that she had questions about casting for The Golden Bachelorette after the success of The Golden Bachelor, pondering, “Are there a lot of older men that are the same caliber?” Sean, however, isn’t too concerned.

“So one question is, do men ever fully mature? I’m not so sure. … Casting men, whether they’re 25 or 65, is probably going to be a challenge regardless of age, [but] I’ve got faith in The Bachelor,” he said. “Those people know what they’re doing. They can probably collect 25 eligible, good looking, charismatic, older guys if they really set out to do that.”

The Golden Bachelorette, starring Joan Vassos, is set to premiere in the fall. While Catherine will be tuning in, Sean might be cooking up Kevin’s in the kitchen. (The duo wed in 2014 and share three kids: sons Samuel, 7, and Isaiah, 5, and Mia, 4.)

“My wife is an amazing cook. She’s a total foodie. She loves talking about things like flavor profiles and this and that, and experimenting in the kitchen. I do not have that talent,” he told Us. “She actually gets frustrated with me all the time because she’ll go to all this work and create this amazing meal and I’ll say, ‘Oh, this is great.’ But then there are also times where she’ll whip something up in five seconds and I’ll eat it and I’ll say, ‘Oh, this is great.’ She’s, like, ‘Wait a second. They can’t both be great. I just spent all this time on this other meal.’ So she’s absolutely the cook. The deal that we have in our house is where if she cooks, I do the dishes, which I’m more than happy to do, and then one night a week I’ll cook and I use cooking lightly. But Kevin’s absolutely helps in that regard because that’s kind of fail-proof on my end.”

He added that the products are “a fantastic option for people who want those macro-balanced meals, easy to make, and just a great healthy option.”