Theresa Nist says relocating wasn’t the only reason for her divorce from Gerry Turner
When “The Golden Bachelor” premiered more than one year ago, Bachelor Nation was anxious to see if two people could find love later in their lives.
Fans appeared to get their answer when Gerry Turner, the show’s inaugural lead, tied the knot with contestant Theresa Nist in a lavish televised ceremony on January 4.
But that marriage came to an end nearly three months later when they announced their divorce in April.
According to Turner, who spoke with “Good Morning America” in a joint interview with Nist on April 12, the reasoning for the split was due to a disagreement regarding where to spend the rest of their lives.
Their divorce was finalized in June, but now Nist is revealing new details behind her split with Turner.
“I didn’t want to go back and forth,” Nist said during a Nov. 5 episode of the “Almost Famous Podcast” with former “The Bachelor” alums Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti.
She went on to clarify that Turner wanted to move to a home in Charleston, South Carolina, while also keeping his home in Indiana, where he currently lives.
“I wanted to have an established base with a beautiful home together with Gerry and then go visit our children,” she added.
But while that issue caused a riff in their marriage, it wasn’t the only reason for the split.
“It’s not just the location thing,” Nist said. “You really can’t know someone in four weeks. I’ll just say that. That’s all I can say. I don’t want to say any more than that.”
She didn’t go into details, but she did recall one comment her 6-year-old grandson said to her before the televised wedding that made her second-guess what she was doing.
“I just thought of this, you had one date and you’re getting married!” her grandson said.
Nist went on to clarify that it wasn’t until after the cameras stopped rolling that she started to see all the differences between her and Turner.
After four weeks, it became clear that Turner wasn’t the right man for her.
But despite how quickly their marriage dissolved, Nist wants fans to know that their intentions were very real.
“I went into this really looking to fall in love and I did,” she said on the podcast, adding that it was hard to say “no” to the televised ceremony, which she described as “gorgeous.”
“If we really are going to get married, we should do it because we’re going to get the wedding of our dreams,” she continued. “And we are older and why waste any time? Do it now.”
In April, Nist expressed that she doesn’t want her divorce from Turner to take away from what the show was trying to accomplish.
And she certainly didn’t want it to discourage other seniors from looking for love.
“I don’t think we can tell you how many people told us that it gave them so much hope,” she said in an interview with Good Morning America.
“We want none of that to change for anybody.”
