Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist gained the hearts of actuality TV romance lovers final yr when he picked her as his bride on “The Golden Bachelor,” just for the couple to interrupt up a couple of months later.
Present followers naturally had questions concerning the fast breakup, and Turner now tells Individuals that one of many components that led to them calling it quits was a most cancers analysis.
“I think it’s time, also because it probably will clear up a lot of mystery around what happened back in February, March and April,” the Indiana-based Turner mentioned.
Turner informed the publication that he was identified with a slow-growing “bone marrow cancer” with a “really long name” proper across the time when he and his new bride “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.”
The couple had a whirlwind romance after assembly on the ABC actuality present and ended up tying the knot on TV in January just some months after the present’s finale.
When Turner and Nist introduced their cut up on “Good Morning America” again in April, they didn’t specify a selected purpose, however did indicate that dwelling in several states was a difficulty.
“We looked at homes in South Carolina, we considered New Jersey, and we just looked at home after home, but we never got to the point where we made that decision,” Nist mentioned.
Eric McCandless by way of Getty Pictures
“Theresa and I have had a number of heart-to-heart conversations … and we’ve come to the conclusion mutually that it’s probably time for us to dissolve our marriage,” Turner mentioned on the time.
Turner mentioned he discovered concerning the illness across the similar time he was beginning a life with Nist.
An orthopedic surgeon treating him for a shoulder harm and observed some uncommon blood markers and referred him to an oncologist. He’s now working with a hematology-oncology group in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
“Unfortunately, there’s no cure for it. So that weighs heavily in every decision I make,” he mentioned relating to the analysis. “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.”
Turner shared the data about his sickness with Nist in February earlier than going into extra testing.
“Certainly, it was hard for me,” he mentioned concerning the dialog with Nist. “But the conversation was brief and I think [she was] a little bit awestruck by the news. So understandable.”
After processing the information, Turner realized he wished his life to be as regular as doable, “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.”
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However, consequently, he admits that “the importance of finding the way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority.”
Since Turner didn’t publicly announce his medical findings straight away, he mentioned many viewers made “judgments” concerning the breakup that he says have been “unfair.”
“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,” he mentioned, including that he hopes followers will now “look at things a little bit differently,” and notice that “maybe it wasn’t quite a rash, fast decision that people thought.”
