Mel Owens Reveals What He Says Was the Reason His Ex-Wife Filed for Divorce

The new Golden Bachelor, Mel Owens was married once before, and he’s opened up about his divorce from his former wife, Fabiana Pimentel Owens.

Mel Owens is a former professional football player for the L.A. Rams who is an attorney representing players who are seeking workers’ compensation, according to his X page.

Court documents show that Pimentel filed for divorce from Owens in 2020 in Orange County, California. The case was marked as “dissolution with child.”

According to People, Owens and his ex-wife were married for 25 years. There was a big age gap. Owens is 66, and Pimentel is 47. Owens sparked controversy when he initially indicated in an interview that he didn’t want to date women over 60, but he later apologized for those comments.

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Why did they get divorced?

Pimentel and Owens got divorced when she fell in love with someone else, he alleged during the Golden Bachelor Season 2 premiere, according to US Weekly.

“Well, it’s never good, right?” Owens told Us Weekly in an interview published Wednesday, September 24. “But, you know, I’m never going to get in the way of someone’s happiness. If you want to find somebody else in a different phase in your life — it hurts — but I can’t get in the way of your happiness. And what’s your happiness may not be my happiness. That’d be a real conflict — you can’t stop somebody, say, ‘I’m over here now.’ You can beg and plead, but I’m fine. Life is short, and if you’re in love with somebody else, that’s fine.”

Their two sons — Lucas, 20, and Andre, 18 — told him his ex-wife isn’t going to watch the show, the magazine noted.

Pimentel is the director of Experiences at Preferred Hotels & Resorts, according to her LinkedIn page. She was a co-founder of Final Touch Organizing. She has a master’s degree in marketing from UCLA.

“The biggest reward is the look and joy on our client’s face when the project is complete. Organizing their homes, office, and helping people to find themselves in their space was why we created Final Touch Organizing,” she told Shout Out SoCal about the Final Touch Organizing business.

“I was married for like 25 years, right?” Owens told host Jesse Palmer at a Hulu event. “I’ve missed that companionship.”

Palmer said that Owens is a “Midwestern guy initially from Michigan” who played in the NFL for 11 years. He called Owens a “family guy” who had some “ups and downs in his personal life” but who devoted himself to “raising his two boys.”

Palmer said that Owens has an “opportunity to focus on his life” now and is looking for someone to spend the rest of his life with.

Us Weekly reported that Owens and Pimentel were married for 17 years and nine months when she filed for divorce, and that they shared joint custody of their sons.

“I had a chance to visit with him and his kids yesterday, and it’s really a unique and special bond to watch,” Palmer told Us of Owens. “I think he’s in this unique time now where he can finally focus a little bit more on it himself. His kids are getting ready to go off to college, and I think he really wants to find a special person.”