US TV star Gerry Turner, best known as the original Golden Bachelor, has announced he has been diagnosed with bone marrow cancer.
The 72-year-old told People this week he learnt he had been diagnosed with the incurable cancer in March, two months after he wed contestant Theresa Nist and just weeks before they split.
The former couple met on The Golden Bachelor and Turner proposed marriage in the final episode.
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They said their “I dos” during a wedding special in January 2024 and announced they were splitting during a live appearance on Good Morning America on April 12, the same day they legally filed for divorce.
They finalised their divorce in June.
“I think it’s time (to reveal the diagnosis), also because it probably will clear up a lot of mystery around what happened back in February, March and April,” Turner told People.
“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.”
The couple had struggled to settle on where to live as both came from different states.
Turner was diagnosed after visiting an orthopaedic surgeon over an injury to his shoulder he sustained when he was teaching a pickleball class in 2021. Because he had not had time previously he only recently made the appointment.
“Finally I got around to going and the orthopaedic surgeon said, ‘Yeah Gerry, there’s not much we can do for your shoulder, but there are some unusual blood markers here,’” he said.
He was referred to an oncologist, and was diagnosed with Waldenström’s macroglobulinaemia, a rare, slow-growing bone marrow cancer.
The Mayo Clinic reports that it is a cancer that begins in the white blood cells and is considered a type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Turner said his cancer was incurable, and “weighs heavily in every decision I make”.
“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.”
He said that following the diagnosis, trying to make his relationship with Nist work became “less of a priority” over spending time with his two daughters, sons-in-law, and granddaughters.
The the news of the couple’s sudden split months after the wedding came as a major shock to fans.
Turner told that outlet that now fans knew the background to the divorce he hoped “people understand in retrospect now that that had a huge bearing on my decisions and I think probably Theresa’s as well”.
“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 realise what’s important to you, that’s where you start to move forward,” he said.