‘The Golden Bachelor’ Proposal: Mandrell’s Mom Dishes
The internet was buzzing last week over The Golden Bachelor‘s wedding of Gerry Turner, and Theresa Nistaired. During that wedding, another couple from The Bachelor family got engaged live on television.
As I read the story on People, I was taken aback because it was Christina Mandrell who got engaged to Brayden Bowers. Bowers and Mandrell met during the Season 9 finale of Bachelor in Paradise in 2023.
While I have not met Brayden, I know Mandrell and worked for a handful of years for her mom, Irlene Mandrell. She is one of the Mandrell sisters from the massively successful 1980s show Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters.
In the time I got to know Christina, I was always impressed not just by how beautiful and graceful she is, but also how kind and sweet she was to me and my family. Not to mention what a great mom she is to her now seven-year-old daughter Blakely, the spitting image of herself.
When my Great Dane had ten puppies unexpectedly in my living room in 2019, it was Mandrell, her sweet older sister Vanessa, and her mom Irlene, who came over to help us bottle-feed all the baby pups.
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After I read the People article, I called her mom, Irlene, to get details of the magical night. I asked her how the couple met. The proud mama told me, “It was honestly news to me until last night. She reached out to him in his DM’s. She ‘slid into his DMs,’ I think they call it.”
The elder Mandrell is quite fond of her soon-to-be son-in-law, noting, “He called and asked my permission before proposing, and he called Christina’s dad and asked him too. I know he wanted to ask her eventually, but he got the opportunity and permission from Gerry and Theresa to do it on the show.”
Irlene was also impressed with his love for Christina’s young daughter. She told me, “He came into town for Blakely’s birthday (in early December), which I thought was really sweet. We got to hang out with Brayden more and really got to know and love him instantly.”
She added, “I just think he’s really special, and he’s such a caring man with such a love of family. I couldn’t be happier for my daughter.”
Irlene Mandrell still performs music and has been focusing her talent on inspirational and gospel music these days. She also hosts a podcast based on a book she wrote called God Rain Miracles. In the podcast, she focuses on and tells stories of everyday people who have had true miracles touch their lives.
Barbara Mandrell, Christina’s aunt, is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. In the early 1980s, she was one of country music’s biggest stars. She is the first person ever to win the CMA’s Coveted Entertainer of the Year award twice in a row. Barbara retired from music in the late 1990s and has never looked back.
Over my career, I have interviewed Barbara Mandrell many times. A few years back, doing a special for Mandrell, I asked Dolly Parton her thoughts on her friend. She told me, “Barbara Mandrell and I have been friends since we were both just young girls starting out in Nashville in the music business. We connected very early on, maybe because we were both little and both blonde, and both liked to do a lot of variety in our shows.”
She added, “We just liked each other. We really felt like girlfriends, and I didn’t really connect that much with any of the other girls in the business. I liked em’ all, but Barbara was more like a friend, and we really had a lot of things in common. And, of course, I was so excited to get to be one of the first guests on her variety show.”
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