Ever since The Golden Bachelor couple Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist announced their divorce in April 2024, Gerry has been cast as the villain of the story, but his revelation that he has incurable cancer has changed everything and put things into perspective, and I believe that we owe him an apology. During The Golden Bachelor season 1, Gerry, a now-73-year-old retired restaurateur from Hudson, Indiana, and Theresa, a now-71-year-old financial services professional from Shrewsbury, New Jersey fell in love and got engaged.
After The Golden Bachelor season 1 ended, Gerry and Theresa got married on January 4, 2024, in a live, televised event called the Golden Wedding. However, just three months later, they announced that they were getting a divorce because they couldn't decide where to live because neither one of them wanted to leave their family. This shocking turn of events turned fans against Gerry, who they blamed for the divorce. However, now that Gerry has announced that he was diagnosed with cancer shortly after the Golden Wedding, I believe that we all owe him an apology.
The Golden Bachelor Star Gerry Turner's Cancer Diagnosis
Gerry Has An Incurable Form Of Bone Marrow Cancer
In a December 2024 interview with People, Gerry revealed that he has an incurable, slow-growing form of bone marrow cancer called Waldenström's macroglobulinemia. According to the Mayo Clinic, Waldenström's macroglobulinemia is a type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that is also sometimes called lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma. The disease changes white blood cells into cancer cells, which build up in the bone marrow, and crowd out the healthy blood cells.
In his interview, Gerry said that there was a topic that he hadn't wanted to talk about until now, but thought that it was time because his involvement with various charities and fundraisers inspired him to share his story. Also, he thought "it probably will clear up a lot of mystery around what happened back in February, March and April." Gerry then revealed that, as he and Theresa were trying to figure out where they were going to live and how to make their life work, he was diagnosed with cancer.
Gerry's diagnosis came when he visited an orthopedic surgeon three years after he injured his shoulder when someone knocked him over while he was teaching a pickleball class. He didn't have the time to go to the doctor at the time, and then The Golden Bachelor made his life even busier. However, when he finally got around to going to the orthopedic surgeon, the doctor informed him that he had "some unusual blood markers."Gerry is now working with a hematology-oncology group in Fort Wayne.
Gerry was then diagnosed with Waldenström's macroglobulinemia. He explained, "Unfortunately, there's no cure for it. So that weighs heavily in every decision I make. It was like 10 tons of concrete were just dropped on me. And I was a bit in denial for a while, I didn't want to admit to it."Gerry shared that he was first told that he had a "blood disorder," but he "pretty much" knew it would be cancer. In February, Gerry told Theresa that he had a blood disorder, and then he went for additional testing, including a bone marrow biopsy, which gave him a more definitive diagnosis.
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In mid-March, Gerry told Theresa everything, saying, "Certainly, it was hard for me. But the conversation was brief, and I think [she was] a little bit awestruck by the news. So understandable." This was when Gerry's priorities shifted, and his focus became more on his family, and less on trying to make things work with Theresa.
Gerry shared, "I wanted my life to continue on as normal as possible, and that led me to believing that as normal as possible more meant spending time with my family, my two daughters, my two son-in-laws, my granddaughters. And the importance of finding the way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority." Gerry added that the "judgments" that people made about their separation were "unfair" to them.
Gerry explained, "When you are hit with that kind of news and the shock wears off after a few days or a few weeks and you regroup and you realize what's important to you, that's where you start to move forward. And I hope that people understand in retrospect now that that had a huge bearing on my decisions and I think probably Theresa's as well."
Gerry added that he hoped that people would now be able to better understand his and Theresa's divorce, noting that everything wasn't as it appeared. He said, "Hopefully they'll look at things a little bit differently, that maybe it wasn't quite a rash, fast decision that people thought. That there was something else going on."
Although Gerry has an incurable form of cancer, he said that he won't say "no to anything," and his new philosophy is Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying." He said, "I'm going to pack as much fun as I possibly can into my life and enjoy every moment. And when I'm gone, I'm gone, but I'm not going to have regrets." Gerry also said that wishes Theresa "all of the good luck in the world, that she finds everything she wants to."
Looking back at The Golden Bachelor, Gerry said, "That glamour and starstruck, whirlwind time was really a cherished memory. It was wonderful, and I certainly wish it would've had a different ending, that we would've found our way, that we would've found solutions to a problem. And most of all, that I would not have had a diagnosis that so strongly influenced my decisions and the direction I went."
We Owe The Golden Bachelor's Gerry Turner An Apology
We Forgot That Gerry Is A Human Being
During The Golden Bachelor, it came to light that Gerry wasn't the innocent widower who hadn't dated much since his wife's death that he was presented as, but that he'd had a relationship with a woman for about three years before the show. I was shocked to hear this because of the persona that the show had created for Gerry, and I admit that it made me lose trust in him. Therefore, when he and Theresa suddenly split up, I automatically assumed that he was at fault, and I blamed him for their divorce.
Like so many other Bachelor Nation fans, I forgot that Gerry is a human being, and I only saw him as the character that I saw on TV. Gerry and Theresa's divorce was sudden and strange, but, instead of giving Gerry the benefit of the doubt and trying to understand what went wrong, I jumped to conclusions and thought he must've been the villain in the situation. Now that I know that Gerry was dealing with a life-changing cancer diagnosis, I understand that his priorities shifted, and he wanted to stay close to his family. This could also be because his daughters lost their mom suddenly seven years ago.
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In hindsight, it makes sense that something terrible happened to Gerry to make him change so drastically. While The Golden Bachelor and the aftermath were his and Theresa's experiences, his cancer journey is his own, and we shouldn't judge him for how he handled it. Gerry himself said that his diagnosis changed the direction of their relationship, and he wished that it hadn't, so I have to wonder if he and Theresa would've stayed together if he hadn't gotten cancer. This might explain why Gerry and Theresa said that they still loved each other when they announced their divorce.
I also understand how trying to figure out where to live with a person he barely knew wasn't as important to him as staying close to his family after being diagnosed. In addition, I respect his decision to keep his diagnosis private until he was ready to talk about it. A cancer diagnosis is often a shock, and Gerry did the best he could in the face of it.
I hope that now that Gerry has revealed what was really going on with him during the Golden Bachelor divorce, that people will give him some grace. He did the best he could in the face of a devastating cancer diagnosis, which snapped him back to reality after living in the fantasy world of The Golden Bachelor. If Gerry's reading this, I want to say that I'm sorry that I judged you. I also want to remind viewers that reality TV stars are real people with real lives, and we should always remember that when we hear their stories. I wish Gerry all the best as he moves forward with his life.
The Golden Bachelor
is available to stream on Hulu.
The Bachelor returns to TV with The Golden Bachelor, a romantic reality competition series created for ABC. The show will focus on an older generation of hopefuls, with one senior male hoping to court and win the heart of one of several older female contestants.
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