The former Golden Bachelor star, Gerry Turner, revealed his shocking cancer diagnosis to PEOPLE. Doctors revealed this incurable type of cancer to Turner just weeks before his split from Theresa Nist.
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Who are Gerry and Theresa?
72-year-old Turner engaged with Nist, age 71, on the show when its inaugural season launched in 2023. Turner was the first bachelor to star in ABC's Golden Bachelor, a reality dating show with an older crowd of contestants.
Although the two married a few months later in a live wedding special, it took three months of marriage before they announced their split.
They blamed the breakup on the two newlyweds living too far from each other and not being able to decide on a place to settle down.
The Golden Bachelor Star's Life-Changing Diagnosis
Now several months later, Gerry spoke to PEOPLE and revealed this life-changing news from spring of this year.
"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," Turner said.
Turner got into an accident three years ago during a pickleball class he was teaching. Someone had knocked him over, causing a shoulder injury. Once he finally got around to visiting a surgeon after putting it off for a long time, they revealed he had "some unusual blood markers" on his affected shoulder.
After bouncing between different doctors and specialists, they soon diagnosed the Golden Bachelor star with "bone marrow cancer." Officially, the name for this disease is Waldenström's macroglobulinemia.
According to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, WM is an "uncommon blood cell cancer." It grows slowly and is a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. WM forms in the bone marrow and can slow blood cell growth. This can lead to "anemia and a weakened immune system."
How The Diagnosis Affected Turner's Decisions
"Unfortunately, there's no cure for it. So that weighs heavily in every decision I make," the ABC star continued. "It was like 10 tons of concrete were just dropped on me. And I was a bit in denial for a while, I didn't want to admit to it."
The star also spoke about how the devastating news affected his life and his day-to-day decisions. "When you are hit with that kind of news and the shock wears off after a few days or a few weeks and you regroup and you realize what's important to you, that's where you start to move forward.
"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."
Fans initially made a lot of "judgments" about their separation when they announced it. Now, in retrospect, Turner hopes people can understand how this news weighed on his decisions.
The bachelor wished Nist "all of the good luck in the world, that she finds everything she wants to." He also said his new philosophy is based on Tim McGraw's Live Like You're Dying.
