Golden Bachelor Mel Owens is down to the wire — and he’s still figuring out whether Peg Munson or Cindy Angelcyk Cullers is The One.
While picking up where he and Cindy, 60, left off in Antigua after the fantasy suite cliffhanger about whether he’s really ready to tie the knot again, Mel, 66, assured her that he enjoys her company.
“I love spending time with you. I love being with you,” Mel told Cindy in Us Weekly’s exclusive sneak peek of the Wednesday, November 12, season 2 finale. “You’re sharing, caring, smart, but it’s a difficult situation. I am torn between you and Peg.”
Cindy admitted that the sentiment was “hard” for her to hear, as she’s “wrestled with trying not to shut down” in the environment — but vowed to “still remain present” and to “still remain open and vulnerable.” Mel, for his part, shared that he appreciated her.
“You’re a brave soul for sticking through it,” he said. “It’s hard to find a partner, but it could happen here, right?”
The sit-down conversation came on the heels of the pair’s boat excursion to swim with stingrays, where Cindy shared in a confessional that she hoped to better understand Mel’s “plans” for their hypothetical future together.
“I’ve told him that I’m falling in love with him,” Cindy said. “I have no idea if he feels the same way that I do.”
Mel had shared a similar sentiment during his previous fantasy suite date with Peg, 62, where he wanted to lower her “tough exterior.” Peg, meanwhile, worried that Mel wasn’t “emotionally available.” While initially remaining tight-lipped about their connection — telling Peg their romance was going “good” and promptly changing the subject — he later admitted that he “really” likes her “a lot.”
The pair ultimately spent the night together — after kicking out the camera crew, of course — and Mel gushed the next morning that the date “exceeded” his expectations.
After Peg and Mel debriefed their night, where they opened up about their respective divorces, she gushed in a confessional, “I feel like we understand each other better now. … All of my concerns definitely got answered last night.”
Ahead of the finale episode, Mel exclusively shared in his Us cover story that he created a pros and cons list of his suitors while making his final choice.
“It was tough, and I’m just trying to figure out who is going to be the best fit for me, who I would enjoy,” he told
In Mel’s perspective, the ending is an emotional one — and, in true Bachelor Nation fashion, not one to be expected.
“You won’t believe how we get there, not mechanically, but how we get there emotionally,” he said. “There’s some movement and twists and turns.”
Quick on the heels of famously sassy, phrase-turning R&B singer and reality TV star Tamar Braxton’s announcement her recently released album, “Bluebird of Happiness,” will be her last — at least for a while — and news that her husband, music executive husband Vincent Herbert, founder of Streamline Records, was legally ordered to pay Sony more than $3.7 million to settle a lawsuit over a 2013 advance, the couple hoisted their grandly proportioned and glamorously appointed Mediterranean mansion in Calabasas, Calif., up for sale at $15 million.
The Herbert-Braxtons, married in late 2007 after about five years together, purchased the 13,716-square-foot mansion inside the double-gated Estates at The Oaks enclave in April 2013 for $10.5 million and public records show since then there have been several notices of default filed and subsequently canceled against the two-acre spread that provides a total of seven bedrooms and nine full and two half bathrooms between the main house and poolside guesthouse.
Wrought iron and glass front doors open to an entry vestibule and foyer with black and white floral-patterned inlaid floor and a floating, wrought iron railed staircase that curves up to the bedrooms on the second floor. The main living and entertaining space makes a great sweep across the rear of the residence with gleaming wide-plank hardwood floors laid in a classy chevron pattern.
A central gallery with glossy grand piano is flanked to one side by a lounge with semi-circular sofa in front of an ornate fireplace and to the other by a “champagne bar” modeled after The Dorchester Hotel in London with tufted velvet sofas and a stately wood-paneled ceiling.
Arched French doors open the vast space to an immense, stone-paved loggia with retractable canvas shade awnings and a bowling alley-length dining table that easily seats at least two-dozen al fresco diners. With elaborately carved cabinetry, granite countertops and a super-sized commercial-style range under a hand-hammered copper hood, the kitchen is open to a spacious informal dining area that, in turn, opens to a family room with fireplace and French doors to the backyard.
The three-story mansion’s creature comfort also include a home theater, a game room, an office, a wine cellar with tasting room and, unsurprisingly, a recording studio along with an elevator, an camera-equipped security system, a gentlemen’s lounge with authentic barber chair, a mirror-walled gym and a subterranean parking garage that will accommodate over a dozen cars. The mansion makes a U-shaped embrace around a broad and grassy courtyard with swimming pool and spa beyond which a soccer pitch-sized lawn gives way to a panoramic view over rugged ravines and undeveloped mountaintops.
Some of the other, equally sized and similarly luxurious estates in The Estates sections of The Oaks are owned by reality television’s Kourtney and Khloé Kardashian, Michael Jackson’s mother Katherine Jackson, Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and Jay McGraw, elder son of extraordinarily well-compensated TV therapist Dr. Phil McGraw, and his Playboy model wife Erica Dahm.