'Golden Bachelor' Gerry Turner offers cancer update, reveals he's dating someone new

USA Today

18-04-2025

'Golden Bachelor' Gerry Turner offers cancer update, reveals he's dating someone new
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Jesse Palmer gives a Gerry and Theresa 'Golden Bachelor' update
Jesse Palmer talks with USA TODAY's Ralphie Aversa on the Oscars red carpet about why "The Golden Wedding" was so stressful for him.
"Golden Bachelor" Gerry Turner is offering fans an update on his ongoing battle with cancer.
In a Tuesday appearance on the "Bachelor Happy Hour" podcast, Turner said he felt "great" as he awaits treatment for bone marrow cancer − a diagnosis he revealed in December.
"Until I have any symptoms, there's no treatment. So I go frequently for blood tests. I'm on, like, a six-month schedule now," Turner, 73, said. "I feel optimistic because the doctor has said, 'Well, when you turn 75, we're going to have to go three-month increments.' So it's telling me that at least he expects me to live another couple of years to get to that. But the bottom line is I feel really good."
Turner, the inaugural star of ABC's dating show for contestants in their golden years, first told fans he had been diagnosed with cancer last year, telling People magazine that "it was like 10 tons of concrete were just dropped on me."
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Gerry Turner feeling optimistic amid incurable Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia
Turner's specific diagnosis, Waldenström's macroglobulinemia, is a bone marrow cancer without a known cure. Considered a type of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the condition converts some white blood cells into cancerous ones, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Even without a cure, Turner says his grasp on life is stronger than ever.
"I mean this sincerely, from the time I got this diagnosis, it's a privilege to live like you're dying," he told "Bachelor Happy Hour" hosts. "I don't turn down anything. I feel like I'm more open to emotions. I'm more open to experiences."
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"The person I'm dating will say, 'Do you want to go do-' And before she even gets out the rest of the sentence, I will say yes. So I'm in on everything," he added. "And it makes life exciting because you kind of in the back of your head feel like you've got a lot of living to do and you don't know how long you have to do it, so don't turn down anything. And so, in a way, it's really a good thing."
Turner, who got engaged to his "Bachelor" season finalist Theresa Nist, then married in a televised ceremony and divorced in the space of months, said when revealing his diagnosis that the disease had factored into their decision to split.
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"I wanted my life to continue on as normal as possible, and that led me to believing that as normal as possible more meant spending time with my family, my two daughters, my two son-in-laws, my granddaughters," he told People. "And the importance of finding the way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority."
At the time of its announcement, fans of the franchise voiced dismay over Nist and Turner's decision to divorce noting that it followed in a long line of "Bachelor Nation" couples who couldn't make it work.
Age, it seemed, was no protection against the show's faulty formula for lasting romance. But Turner told People he hopes this revelation will prompt fans to reconsider.
"Hopefully they'll look at things a little bit differently," he told the magazine, "that maybe it wasn't quite a rash, fast decision that people thought. That there was something else going on."
Nist told a different story in an interview with People, saying she didn't believe Turner's diagnosis was "a factor in the ending of the relationship, at least not for me."
Despite their conflicting reports, Nist said she wished her ex-husband the best.
"I wish for him a long and healthy, prosperous life, and I hope that he finds his person. I want him to be so happy, and I just wish him all the best of everything in the world," she said.