“Golden Bachelor ”Gerry Turner Still Can't Bear to See Himself Rejecting Women: 'Soul-Crushing'
Turner, 72, opened up about his experience as the first-ever Golden Bachelor — from the rosy to the wrenching
John Fleenor/Disney
As stressful as Bachelor Nation's dramatic rose ceremonies are for the hopeful suitors, they can be just as emotionally taxing for the show's lead.
Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner found the show’s eliminations “without a doubt” the hardest part of his experience filming the series — and he still struggles to watch those tear-filled moments now.
“At the end of the day, when you know you have to send some of those women home, it was just soul-crushing,” the retired restaurateur, 72, said Monday during a Q&A panel at the Times Center in New York City.
“You form good friendships, good relationships, good connections, and you work really hard to do it because you want to be open to every possibility that's in front of you,” he explained.
Anthony Behar courtesy of ABC
All of that connection makes for a lot of tough calls, though, and not just in the final few weeks. Ahead of Monday night’s panel, there was a screening of the season’s premiere episode, and showrunner Jason Ehrlich shared that even the first round of eliminations was too much for Turner to rewatch backstage.
“When it got to the rose ceremony, you were sitting there, and you stood up and visibly went, ‘Oh, I can't watch this.’ Still to this day, it affects you. This far removed, [it’s] still so hard for you to watch that moment,” said Ehrlich, who appeared alongside fellow showrunners Bennett Graebner and Claire Freeland. “It speaks to who you are, Gerry.”
Despite the difficulty, Turner said he understands that it’s all part of the gig: “Bear in mind, that's what we sign up for, and there's no other way to do it.”
Anthony Behar courtesy of ABC
Turner, who closed out the spinoff’s debut season engaged to Theresa Nist — and is set to marry her in a first-of-its-kind televised wedding on Jan. 4 — previously admitted that even with the practice he got from the show, he’s still no “expert” on navigating a breakup.
“I absolutely would not consider myself qualified to teach a course on healthy breakups. Just because I did it 21 times does not make me an expert!” he told Entertainment Weekly. “It's like I'm a novice 21 times.”
Turner added of the difficulty he faced with each subsequent elimination, “Because of the individual, I had a different reaction to it, but the fundamental agreement across the board was the sadness because they all had to leave.”
Watching the episodes back wasn’t easy for Turner’s fiancée, either. During the panel, Nist, 70, admitted that she was “horrified” every time she watched herself on screen, and not just because of the weirdness of seeing herself on television.
She said that Turner “prepared” her for things, “but there’s some things he just couldn’t prepare me for.”
Anthony Behar courtesy of ABC
Nist later shared, though, that the process taught her just how “open-minded” she is.
“I learned how I could really take a step back and allow him to explore it with every other woman and to really cheer them on and say, ‘Great. I want you to go on a date.’ I really wanted Gerry to find the right person, and I only wanted it to be me if it was right for it to be me,” she said.
Breakups aside, as he reflected on the entire experience of the show, Turner had only good things to say.
“It was a fantastic journey. It had excitement, it had energy, it had a lot of tears — I'll admit to that — but it was awesome. It was wonderful,” he summed up.
As for what he learned about himself through the process, the father of two joked, “I cry too much.”
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The Golden Bachelor can be streamed in full on Hulu.
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