Copyright Us Weekly
Former Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner hasn’t quite embraced the idea of being divorced following his split from Theresa Nist. “I don’t want to sound disrespectful at all. I don’t think of myself as being divorced,” Turner, 74, said on the Tuesday, October 28, episode of the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast when asked how he responds to criticism he moved on too fast in his engagement to Lana Sutton. Cohost Susan Noles, for her part, quipped, “What marriage?” “It was such a short time and it was, you know, in an artificial environment that I have to stop myself and say, ‘Yeah, you know what? I am divorced. It’s not like I’m that guy that was married 43 years and then did nothing,'” Turner continued. “I am divorced.” Turner ended season 1 of 2023’s The Golden Bachelor engaged to Nist, 72, with whom he tied the knot the following year. Months after exchanging vows during a televised ceremony, Turner and Nist shared their decision to call it quits. More than a year later, Turner is set to publish his memoir, The Golden Years (out November 4), where he details his experience as the Bachelor. In the book, Turner claimed he told second runner-up Faith Martin that he felt “trapped” ahead of marrying Nist. While recalling the moment during an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, Turner shared that he “felt like [he] was doing the right thing” by continuing to go through with the marriage. “I just didn’t feel overjoyed about it,” Turner explained in his Us digital cover story. “So much of the book is about how I felt at certain moments, and that’s only a momentary truth… I had second thoughts, but I don’t think [they] were exaggerated from anyone’s normal second thoughts.” Nist, meanwhile, shared in a statement with Us that she wished the situation had been handled differently. “It makes me very sad to think that he felt empty and trapped,” she said. “I wish he had said something and just ended it. But at least now I understand why he was so hurtful to me so many times. And I will say this. Those in glass houses should not throw stones. I do wish him all the best.” Turner has since moved on with Sutton, with whom he announced his engagement earlier this month. While reflecting on the idea that his marriage with Sutton is “too soon” following his divorce, Turner noted that he didn’t think about it like that. “The comment of it being too soon has never come to me. You know, that question has not been asked,” he said during the Tuesday episode. “There are some things that are timeless. And I think one of them is when you meet the right person, you don’t even think about where it fits on the timeline. It’s just when it’s right, it’s right.” Will Mel Actually Find The One on The Golden Bachelor? Sutton, meanwhile, echoed Turner’s comments and noted that her children could sense the love between the couple early on. “They both said they knew from the start that we made a good couple,” Sutton shared of her kids. “They said they were the same way. They said, ‘When you meet somebody and you have those feelings, you just know.’ They said, ‘We knew it with you guys too from the start.’ So no, for them, they were like, no, it’s not too soon. It’s not too fast because you just can tell when you met the right person.”
