The next installment of The Golden Bachelor hasn’t even premiered, and its star, Mel Owens, is already apologizing. The former NFL linebacker found himself in a reality-sized controversy on the June 4 episode of the In the Trenches podcast when he revealed that his age “preference” for contestants was between “45 to 60.

The new star of The Golden Bachelor was a little tarnished by recent comments he made about dating older women, but he’s trying to make amends. In a new interview with Glamour, Mel Owens — who is set to star in the second season of ABC’s senior dating competition — confronts the backlash he received when he said in a podcast interview in June that he’d eliminate any contestants age 60 or older.