Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner has revealed that weeks before his divorce from Theresa Nist, he received a cancer diagnosis.
“There’s a topic that I haven’t wanted to talk about until now,” Turner told People in an exclusive interview. “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,” Turner noted in reference to his split with Nist in April.
During a visit to an orthopedic surgeon seeking counsel on a shoulder injury, the doctor noticed “unusual blood markers” in Turner’s shoulder, he told People.
Turner went to a series of doctors and was diagnosed with Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, which is a slow-growing cancer that begins in the white blood cells and spreads to bone marrow, according to the Mayo Clinic.
“Unfortunately, there’s no cure for it. So that weighs heavily in every decision I make,” Turner told the outlet about his diagnosis. “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.”
In the weeks following his cancer diagnosis, Turner shared the news with his new wife, Nist, in February. According to Turner, she was “a little bit awestruck” by the diagnosis.
Roughly two months later, the couple announced plans to divorce just three months after their live televised wedding. At the time, Turner kept his diagnosis under wraps. The couple, who lived three states apart from each other, said they chose to split because it was “best for the happiness of each of us to live apart,” they told Good Morning America.
Turner says he hopes his cancer diagnosis adds context to their decision to split.
“I hope that people understand in retrospect now that that (diagnosis) had a huge bearing on my decisions and I think probably Theresa’s as well,” he told People.
How Turner’s diagnosis impacted his marriage to Nist
As Turner and Nist were, “trying very hard” to work out the kinks in the their new marriage, Turner was diagnosed with cancer, he recalled in an interview with People.
“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 the outlet. “And the importance of finding the way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority.”
“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,” he added.
Turner said he hopes people will be more understanding of his split with Nist and “look at things a little bit differently, that maybe it wasn’t quite a rash, fast decision that people thought. That there was something else going on,” he said.
After meeting on the inaugural season of “Golden Bachelor,” Turner and Nist tied the knot in a televised ABC special on Jan. 4, 2024. At the time, they expressed full commitment to making their marriage work, per Variety.
While announcing their mutual decision to split, the couple claimed to be still in love with each other, as the Deseret News previously reported.
Turner said he still wishes Nist “all of the good luck in the world, that she finds everything she wants to.”
“That glamour and starstruck, whirlwind time was really a cherished memory,” he said of his relationship with Nist, per People. “It was wonderful, and I certainly wish it would’ve had a different ending, that we would’ve found our way, that we would’ve found solutions to a problem. And most of all, that I would not have had a diagnosis that so strongly influenced my decisions and the direction I went.”
“I’m going to pack as much fun as I possibly can into my life and enjoy every moment. And when I’m gone, I’m gone, but I’m not going to have regrets.”