'Golden Bachelor' Couple Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist Reveal Details Behind Their Sudden Breakup

When Gerry Turner, 72, and Theresa Nist, 71, announced their divorce in April 2024, 99 days after their wedding was televised on ABC’s The Golden Bachelor, many viewers took a cynical view about just how real the love depicted on the hit reality show was. Today show host Al Roker, 70, said the quick divorce proved “that old people can be just as stupid” as young ones.

But the story behind the divorce turns out to be more complicated than it at first appeared. On Dec. 11, Turner revealed to People Magazine, that he had been diagnosed with cancer. "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. It was like 10 tons of concrete were just dropped on me," he said.

His disease, Waldenström's macroglobulinemia (pronouned mak-roe-glob-u-lih-NEE-me-uh), is an incurable but slow-growing type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that turns white blood cells cancerous. It strikes about three in a million Americans per year, according to the International Waldenström's Macroglobulinemia Foundation. The median age of diagnosis is 73, and white males are at particular risk. 

“When you are hit with that kind of news and the shock wears off,” Turner told People, “you realize what’s important to you.” What was important to him was keeping his family close. “I wanted my life to continue on as normal as possible, and that [meant] spending time with my family, my two daughters, my two son-in-laws, my granddaughters. And the importance of finding the way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority.”

“And I hope that people understand in retrospect now that that had a huge bearing on my decisions and I think probably Theresa’s as well.”

But Nist said his illness had no bearing on her decisions. She made it clear to People that cancer “wasn’t a factor in the ending of the relationship, at least not for me.” 

But it did intensify one big obstacle to their happiness: the question of where the couple should live. He’s in Indiana, she’s in New Jersey, and she said the plan was for both to sell their homes and move to a new one in Charleston, South Carolina, the state where her son lives. “I wasn’t forcing him to go to South Carolina.” 

Then, Nist alleged, “He kind of changed his mind. He said, 'No, let's do it six weeks here [Indiana] and six weeks there [her house].' And I didn't want to do that. I really wanted a home together.”

He didn’t want to continue the home hunt. “I think it just petered out,” Nist told People. “And then the emails just stopped, [and] we weren't looking anymore."