Gerry Turner, the first Golden Bachelor, says in his forthcoming memoir that a prenup struggle with then-fiancée Theresa Nist, and persistent doubts, threatened to upend the couple’s televised wedding up to the final days.
Turner, 74, writes in “Golden Years: What I’ve Learned from Love, Loss, and Reality TV” (Grand Central Publishing, out Nov. 4) that Nist’s delays in signing the prenuptial agreement – at his insistence – continued as he traveled to the Palm Springs resort for ABC’s “The Golden Wedding” on Jan. 4. 2024.
“I began to worry she was going to run out the clock,” Turner writes. “Then I 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.”
The prenup was settled and the TV wedding took place. But the reality fairy-tale marriage from the first senior edition of “The Bachelor” ended after three months. On April 12, 2024, the couple announced on “GMA” that they were getting divorced.
Turner, who announced his engagement to girlfriend Lana Sutton on Oct. 3, looks back at the first “Golden Bachelor” season and the brief marriage to Nist, the contestant to whom he proposed in the series finale. Here are the major memoir revelations:
Gerry Turner wishes he told Theresa Nist to ‘zip it’ after watching ‘Golden Bachelor’ feud with Kathy Swarts
Turner’s opinion of Nist, one of 22 “Golden Bachelor” contestants, has changed in retrospect and after post-divorce conversations with other Bachelor Mansion competitors.
“Several women shared a seemingly small detail that loomed large in my mind,” Turner writes. “While at the mansion, Theresa was reading ‘How to Win ‘The Bachelor.””
The image made Turner “sick to my stomach,” he writes. Nist’s alleged strategizing suggested “her goal was never to find the next love of her life; it was to win.”
Turner also espouses a new view of the Bachelor Mansion blow-up between Nist and Kathy Swarts − which resulted in Swarts’ infamous “zip it” line. Swarts said the outburst stemmed from Nist’s constant bragging about her date with Turner.
During filming, Turner chided Swarts and dismissed her in the next rose ceremony.
“Later when I saw the argument for myself, I thought, ‘I damn well could have said ‘Zip it’ myself!” Turner writes. “Frankly, Theresa was rubbing it in.”
Turner says he wanted the prenup and Nist delayed
Turner, a retired Mr. Quick restaurant franchise owner, addresses rumors and reports that financial specialist Nist insisted on the prenuptial agreement. Turner writes that he insisted on “the basic requirement” of a prenup.
After weeks of back and forth and a “frantic” last-minute call from his lawyer about Nist’s missing signature, Turner received confirmation of the finalized contract while he was checking into the Palm Springs resort for the wedding weekend. Turner writes he had a “stress hangover about getting that prenup signed, which led to the worst case of cold feet.”
But the couple carried on with the TV plans. “The only alternative was to suck it up, keep my mouth shut and go through with it with my earnest commitment to give 100 percent to make our marriage a happy one,” Turner writes.
Turner’s pre-wedding talk with ‘Golden Bachelor’ contestant Faith Martin
At a group gathering the night before the TV ceremony, Turner aired his wedding concerns to “Golden Bachelor” contestant Faith Martin, one of the final women to leave the season. Turner said he felt “trapped” and worried the wedding was “the wrong thing to do.”
Martin asked him, “What the hell are you doing?” according to the memoir, telling Turner repeatedly, “Gerry, you do not have to do this.”
“I wish I had listened to her wise and sincere advice,” Turner writes. “Most of all I couldn’t let down Theresa whom I still loved dearly even if I worried about the pace of our relationship.”
After divorce, Turner spiraled into depression
After the split with Nist, Turner was buoyed by “Golden Bachelor” contestants, his tight-knit group of Indiana friends and the support of his daughters, Angie and Jenny. But Turner writes that he let the “online trolls” get to him.
“One night, while I was lying in my bed staring at the ceiling, it all became too much, and for the briefest of moments, I thought about putting a gun to my head,” Turner writes. “Just as quickly, though, I thought about Jenny and Angie. 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 announced in December that he is battling a slow‐growing bone marrow cancer. He informed Nist of his diagnosis during divorce proceedings, but his estranged wife did not check in like other show contestants did. “To be that insignificant to someone I had married, albeit briefly, was very painful,” Turner writes. “We no longer talk; we have no reason to.”
Turner has ‘Golden Bachelor’ lessons
Despite the divorce, drama, regrets and a Hollywood Reporter exposé into his life (which Turner disputes in the memoir), the first Golden Bachelor takes positive lessons from his tenure.
“If my time as a lead on a TV show taught me anything, it’s that you don’t have to give up. That’s the true success story of ‘The Golden Bachelor,'” Turner writes. “I am absolutely not willing to crawl into a hole and give up just because things didn’t work out with Theresa.”
