Gerry Turner, the retired 72-year-old single from the inaugural season of The Golden Bachelor, has revealed that he was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer earlier this year. And now coming clean about his diagnosis, he also explained how it affected his decision to split with Theresa Nist, whom he married after a whirlwind romance on the ABC dating reality show.
Turner and Nist, 71, tied the knot during a live televised wedding special in January 2024 after he proposed in the season finale in November 2023. However, on April 12, 2024, they announced that they were parting ways in a joint Good Morning America interview. At the time, they said that the distance had become an issue as they lived several states apart (Turner in Indiana and Nist in New Jersey) and neither wanted to be apart from their respective families.
However, speaking now with People, Turner says that his cancer diagnosis also weighed in on the decision. He said that while he as reluctant to open up at first, he was finally been inspired to speak out after getting involved with a few cancer charities and fundraisers.
"I think it's time, also because it probably will clear up a lot of mystery around what happened back in February, March and April," Turner explained. "As Theresa and I were trying very hard to find our lifestyle and where we were going to live and how we were going to make our life work, I was unfortunately diagnosed with cancer."
Turner learned of his cancer—a slow-growing form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma called Waldenström's macroglobulinemia—when he sought out an orthopedic surgeon for a shoulder injury he sustained teaching a pickleball class three years earlier. At the time, he was too busy to seek treatment, and then his life became even more hectic after he was cast on the show.
"Finally I got around to going [to the doctor] and the orthopedic surgeon said, 'Yeah Gerry, there's not much we can do for your shoulder, but there are some unusual blood markers here,'" Turner recalled. "And so an orthopedic surgeon went to my family doctor, my family doctor referred me to an oncologist, and now I'm working with a hematology-oncology group in Fort Wayne."
He initially told Nist about the blood disorder in February, but after undergoing addition testing and a bone marrow biopsy, the picture became clearer. Finally, he explained the full situation to her in mid-March. "Certainly, it was hard for me," he said of breaking the news. "But the conversation was brief and I think [she was] a little bit awestruck by the news. So understandable."
"Unfortunately, there's no cure for it. So that weighs heavily in every decision I make," Turner continued. "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."
"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," he reasoned. "And the importance of finding the way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority."
Turner now hopes that people understand in retrospect how his diagnosis had "a huge bearing" on his decision to end the marriage, and believes it was likewise the case for Nist.
"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 added. "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."
