Bachelor Nation
How ‘Golden Bachelor’ Gerry Turner’s Shock Cancer Diagnosis Led to Theresa Nist Split
The Golden Bachelor‘s Gerry Turner is opening up about his health and how it impacted his relationship with Theresa Nist. The 72-year-old was diagnosed with a “bone marrow cancer,” also known Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, earlier this year, he told PEOPLE. His doctors initially told him he had a “blood disorder.”
The news shocked the Indiana native and his wife, who had gotten married in a TV special dubbed The Golden Wedding. Turner revealed his conversation with Nist about his diagnosis was “brief,” and he said Nist was “a little bit awestruck by the news.”
His diagnosis came at a time when he and Nist were trying to figure out their future. “Unfortunately, there’s no cure for it. So that weighs heavily in every decision I make,” he said. “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.”
Turner noted that he “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.”
The Golden Bachelor couple announced their split in April 2024, just three months after their wedding. At the time, the couple claimed that not being able to settle on a place to live led to their split. Turner revealing his cancer diagnosis sheds new insight into their breakup.
“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,” he said.
While Turner clarified that his diagnosis was a factor in his eventual split from Nist, that wasn’t the case for the New Jersey native. “If that was something on his part, maybe, I don’t know. But no, that didn’t factor into ending the relationship,” she told the outlet. “Part of it was the distance, but that wasn’t the only part. That’s really all I will say.”
