Theresa Nist, who found love on the original season of Bachelor spinoff The Golden Bachelor, says that she “absolutely” didn’t end her marriage to Gerry Turner over him having cancer.
“It was a zero factor, zero. Absolutely. I was just so surprised that he even said that,” Nist explained on Thursday’s edition of The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast. “I knew about the cancer a long time ago. And the way Gary presented it to me was that, ‘The doctor said that I’m going to die of old age before this cancer gets to me.’ He bluffed it off, like it really wasn’t that important. And he had no symptoms, and he still doesn’t. So we never had a conversation that said, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re sick. I can’t stay with you now. I have to leave.’ That never happened.”
Turner and Nist were engaged at the end of the 2023 reality show, and they swapped vows on live TV in January 2024. They announced together, in an April 2024 interview with Good Morning America, that they had decided to divorce.
It was in a December 2024 interview with PEOPLE that Turner said how having been diagnosed with a blood cell cancer, Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, was a factor in their breakup. He also cited the two wanting to stay close to their families, although they lived three states away.
“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,” Turner told the magazine. “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.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/golden-bachelor-gerry-turner-theresa-nist-060525-ed34f638806143fbbed362dbd6c23601.jpg)
Nist gave her reaction to hearing Turner’s words.
“They interviewed him the day before they interviewed me,” she said. “And right before my interview, they contacted me, and they said, ‘Hey, we want to talk to you right now, because Gerry just came out and said that his illness was the reason you broke up.’ And I go, ‘What?’ I said, ‘No, it wasn’t that.’ There was zero conversation about that being in it.”
Because of the way Turner worded things, Nist thought it was possible he believed it was a factor.
“If that was the reason, it was in his mind only, never discussed as a reason. He said it was a factor that weighed heavily into my decision. And I would imagine Theresa’s, too,” she noted. “He just imagined. But it had nothing to do with it. Nothing. I would have never left my husband over in illness. I stayed with my husband, Billy. I mean, for years he was sick, and he passed away at home. He was in hospice. I mean, it was really pretty bad. But I would never leave … That’s just not me. That wouldn’t happen.”
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly’s free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.She theorized that the real reason it didn’t work out for the couple is … it just didn’t. There was no easy explanation.
Turner has since revealed that he’s dating a retired teacher named Lana who, like him, lives in Indiana.
“I really am happy for him,” said Nist, who’s also seeing someone. “And if he had to find his person by going this circuitous route, then he did, then it was successful. He found someone that really suits him, and that’s wonderful. So I think it worked out the way it was supposed to work out.
