“Golden Bachelor” Producers Admit They Feared Seeing Gerry Turner's First TV Kiss — but 'Erupted' When It Happened
One 'Golden Bachelor' executive producer admitted to hesitations about watching a 70something "Dad" type get intimate with multiple senior women: "We didn't know how viewers were going to respond"
ABC/Craig Sjodin
Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist on the premiere episode of 'The Golden Bachelor'The team behind The Golden Bachelor wasn’t too sure how they were going to feel watching 72-year-old Gerry Turner get it on with the 21 women vying for his heart.
“We didn't know how viewers were going to respond,” Bachelor executive producer Bennett Graebner admitted at a screening and panel for the show in New York City. “In fact, I don't think we knew how we were going to respond.”
Graebner was joined by fellow showrunners Jason Ehrlich and Claire Freeland, as well as Turner and his fiancée Theresa Nist at Monday's event, and the team behind the hit dating franchise shared their pre-show fears about “what it would feel like when we saw Gerry kiss a woman for the first time.”
“We see that a lot. We stand 10, 15 feet away from young men and women all the time making out. It feels a little weird, a little creepy. But there was something on the first night about thinking about Dad here and wondering what that was going to feel like,” Graebner said, playfully referring to the franchise’s first lead for the senior dating spinoff.
He said he remembers the first time they watched Turner kiss a contestant — and it just so happened to be his future wife-to-be, 70.
“Theresa, you grabbed the back of his neck, and you went in for it,” Grabner recalled of the scene in the premiere episode. “And I don't know if you heard us, we erupted. We were so loud that we had to quiet ourselves down. And I think that was the moment we realized this could work. We loved it.”
Ehrlich added of the producer’s reaction, “I just keep going back to that kiss, and you looked at me and you went, ‘It's not that bad.’ ”
“Is that what I said?” Graebner replied, adding of the moment Turner and Nist’s love story began, “It was really beautiful, that moment. It really was.”
ABC/Craig Sjodin
Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist's first kiss during the premiere episode of 'The Golden Bachelor'During Monday’s panel, the couple also shared more about how they felt watching the season back, as Ehrlich revealed that the show’s lead took rose ceremonies and eliminations particularly hard.
The producer said the difficulty Turner had both in the moment and watching the scenes back — prior to the panel, a screening of the premiere episode of the season played, and even that first rose ceremony was too much for Turner to watch — “speaks to who you are, Gerry.”
Anthony Behar courtesy of ABC
Executive Producer Jason Ehrlich, Gerry Turner, Theresa Nist, and Executive Producers Claire Freeland and Bennett Graebner attend screening and panel of 'The Golden Bachelor'The retired restaurateur admitted that eliminations were “without a doubt” the hardest part of his experience filming the series.
“At the end of the day, when you know you have to send some of those women home, it was just soul-crushing,” he said.
“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.”
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.”
John Fleenor/disney
Gerry Turner proposes to Theresa Nist in the finale of 'The Golden Bachelor'Nist had a hard time watching the show back, too. “Gerry and I were talking on the phone all the time, so he prepared me for things, but there's some things he just couldn't prepare me for,” she admitted.
The couple are leaving the past in the rearview, though, as they’re gearing up to say “I do” in a first-of-its-kind live televised wedding on Jan. 4, 2024.
“I met the man of my dreams,” Nist told PEOPLE of the quick turnaround between the proposal and the wedding. “It wasn't our original timeline, but to be presented with the wedding of our dreams? Spectacular, incredible, wow!”
“When you're in your 20s and you put something off for a year, it's a very small percentage of your life,” Gerry added. “In your 70s, the clock ticks faster. And I'm 100 percent certain I found the right girl for me. So it's like, why not?”
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The Golden Bachelor can be streamed in full on Hulu.
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