‘The Golden Bachelor’ star is generating a lot of buzz with tidbits emerging from his upcoming book.
Bachelor Nation fans formed plenty of opinions after watching the whirlwind romance, wedding, and divorce between the first lead of The Golden Bachelor, Gerry Turner, and his final rose recipient, Theresa Nist.
Now, Turner has written a book about his experience, and tidbits emerging ahead of the release date are generating plenty of buzz.
USA Today shared some of the biggest bombshells from Turner’s upcoming book, Golden Years: What I’ve Learned from Love, Loss, and Reality TV. The bottom line, he admitted, is “We no longer talk; we have no reason to.”
Turner revealed that he had cold feet leading into the wedding, and one of his other bachelorettes, Faith Martin, knew. The night before the wedding, Turner writes, he talked with Martin about feeling “trapped” in moving ahead with the wedding. He told her he had concerns that getting married was “the wrong thing to do.”
He wrote that Martin questioned what he was doing and told him, “Gerry, you do not have to do this.”
“I wish I had listened to her wise and sincere advice,” Turner wrote. He noted that he decided he “couldn’t let down Theresa whom I still loved dearly even if I worried about the pace of our relationship.”
Gerry Turner Insists He Was the One Who Wanted a Prenup
One issue, Turner noted, was Nist’s alleged resistance to signing a prenuptial agreement. Despite fan speculation that Nist would be the one insisting on a prenup, Turner wrote that she was avoiding signing it while he was feeling stuck over what to do.
He indicated that he learned Nist had finally signed the paperwork as he checked into the hotel ahead of their wedding. He wrote that he had a “stress hangover about getting that prenup signed, which led to the worst case of cold feet.”
While waiting for Nist to sign the prenup, Turner writes, he worried “she was going to run out the clock.” Then, he wrote, he “would be faced with either calling off a very expensive, televised wedding at the last minute or entering into a marriage legally unprotected. I didn’t like either of these options.”
According to Turner, he was told by several other golden bachelorettes that during filming, “Theresa was reading [the book] ‘How to Win ‘The Bachelor.’” It made him feel “sick to my stomach,” he wrote, feeling that she was doing the show to “win” rather than find love.
Three months after Nist and Turner wed, they announced their split. Turner wrote that “online trolls” got the best of him at one point, and he nearly took drastic action. “For the briefest of moments, I thought about putting a gun to my head,” he revealed.
“Just as quickly, though, I thought about [his kids]. I could never do that to my daughters, but I don’t truly believe I wanted to kill myself. My suicidal thoughts were more an expression of my desire to disappear,” Turner explained.
As the divorce progressed, Turner learned he had a slow-growing type of bone marrow cancer. He noted that he told Nist about it, but she didn’t follow up to check in on him regularly, like others from The Golden Bachelor did. He wrote, “To be that insignificant to someone I had married, albeit briefly, was very painful.”
‘The Golden Bachelor’ Fans Aren’t Impressed By Turner’s Claims
As soon as The Golden Bachelor fans learned of the book bombshells, some shared their reactions on Reddit.
“The way the goldens are even messier than the younger casts lol,” one Reddit user joked.
“He’s stillllllll trying to turn women against each other. By mentioning Faith by name, he threw her under the bus imo. I hope the golden ladies stick together and stay classy about this…far away from him,” another Redditor wrote.
Someone else commented, “Was feeling better about Gerry because of the contrast to Mel, but this is sh___y behavior. Theresa has put up with enough.”
“Not buying what Gerry is trying to sell, including his memoir. I too would like to hear what Teresa (sic) has to say,” an additional comment read.
“It’s…gross to say he had cold feet and instead of being honest with his fiancée he confided in one of the runners up instead…he’s not a very credible narrator imo,” wrote another critic.
