The Golden Bachelorette's Joan Vassos Was Shocked When Men Started Sending Her 'D--- Pics' and 'Scary' Messages on Social Media

Joan Vassos ' life changed in more ways than one when she appeared on The Golden Bachelor .

After leaving Gerry Turner 's season early on her own accord to be with her daughter as she battled postpartum depression, she was chosen to be the lead of the first-ever Golden Bachelorette — but her popularity has brought along attention from some of the wrong people.

"I had a hard time navigating that process ," she explained of her social media inboxes being "inundated" with messages.

"On a dating app , they're kind of vetted and you can see a profile. [With DMs], they're just total strangers messaging you. I didn't really respond to those much. Or I would have little conversations and say, 'Thank you, you're so flattering,' or whatever," the reality star shared. "But none of them seemed to be anything that would really work out. And then some of the DMs were weird."

Vassos, 61, revealed she's even received "d--- pics."

"And I got people with foot fetishes. They wanted me to send them pictures of my feet and would pay me for it. One person offered to buy all the shoes that I wore on Golden Bachelor . It was scary," she confessed. "My kids were like, ‘Give me your phone, mom. We're blocking all this.'"

Those messages will hopefully be a thing of the past for the mother-of-four, as she met over 20 suitors in her search for a husband.

When asked last month what she's looking for in a partner, she replied, "I’m very picky about a man being a gentleman. Somebody with a big heart, somebody who is generous and also somebody who’s humble."

Vassos also noted that she has a few non-negotiables, including her firm stance against moving .

"My family is the most important thing, and I also don't want a guy who thinks he needs to relocate. If he's able to uproot his life, he's probably not my kind of guy," she confessed.

A disagreement on relocating is what led to Turner and ex-fiancé Theresa Nist splitting up after getting engaged on the show.

Though their romance didn't last, Vassos believes their love was the real deal.

"I loved that they fell in love on the show. We all saw it happening," she explained. "I loved that they wanted to dive into it, like, 'I don't want to waste any time.' Then when they figured out they weren't good , they didn't waste any more time with it. I think it was the right thing to do."

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Entertainment Weekly spoke with Vassos.