The Golden Bachelor star Gerry Turner had been out of the dating game for most of his life. But luckily, his daughters helped him prepare to date 22 women simultaneously.
The 72-year-old retired restaurateur married his high school sweetheart, Toni, who died of a bacterial infection in 2017. He recalled the heartbreaking situation during a party leading up to last night's premiere of The Golden Bachelor.
"I didn't have a good circle of friends. I wasn't dating anyone," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "I saw the ad on The Bachelor advertising for [it]. I answered the ad, then, through COVID, things went away. It went silent."
Finally, in February of this year, Turner got the call informing him he'd been selected to become the first-ever Golden Bachelor. The series is a spinoff of the classic dating show, The Bachelor, but with a twist. This time, senior-aged contestants seek love for the "sunset years of life."
But the widower, who had been married to Toni for 43 years, was seriously lacking in dating skills. Enter his daughters, Jenny and Angie.
"One of the pieces of advice my daughters gave me was to be genuine and be true to myself. So as I went through, whether it was the rose ceremonies, the dates, or just the one-on-one conversation, I really tried hard to just be myself," he said. "In doing that, my emotions were very close to the surface a lot of the time. I'm not really going to apologize for it because I feel like I was sincere and honest. What people see is what I am."
Turner says he surprised himself at how well he compartmentalized his feelings for each of the women vying for his affection.
"When I talked to one woman one day or one afternoon, I'd learn about her, and then I'd set that bit of information aside and start a whole new box for the next woman so that I'd learn more about that person without thinking about the previous one," he said.
But this hardly made him cold and unfeeling. Turner says his emotions seeped through often.
"I'm pretty quick to tears," he said.
The Golden Bachelor premiere episode is currently streaming on Hulu.
