‘Golden Bachelor’ Gerry Turner goes scorched earth on ‘calculated’ ex Theresa Nist in new memoir: most explosive bombshells

Bachelor in not-so-paradise. 

Gerry Turner, ABC’s first “The Golden Bachelor” lead, has a tell-all book detailing his experience on the show — and why he really divorced Theresa Nist after just three months of marriage. 

Called “Golden Years: What I’ve Learned From Love, Loss, and Reality TV,” the explosive memoir is out now.

Turner, 74, is based in Indiana, and is a widower, a father, and grandfather. He starred on Season 1 of the franchise, which features older people in their “golden” years.

“The motivation [for the book] came from the frustration of not being able to tell the whole story about myself and my feelings while I was on the show,” Turner told The Post. 

“There was so much left unsaid and unrevealed,” he explained. “I wanted that information out there.”

The Post has reached out to Nist for comment.

Here are the biggest bombshells.

His late wife never told him about a health diagnosis

Before going on “The Golden Bachelor,” Turner was married to his high school sweetheart, Toni, for 43 years, until she died of a bacterial infection in 2017 at age 64. 

But, after her death, he found evidence in their home that she had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. 

Turner wrote, “She’d never mentioned this big diagnosis to me…. and, as far as I could tell, she’d never followed through with treatment.” He said he was “traumatized” by his discovering his late wife’s diabetes diagnostics “which she had not only hidden but apparently completely ignored.” 

In his dating life after her death, that pushed him to want to look for a woman who valued health, fitness, and going to the doctor.

He confirms he met an ex at his wife’s funeral

Turner’s biggest scandal during his season was a Hollywood Reporter story that came out in Nov. 2023. 

On the show, Turner said that he hadn’t had a serious relationship since his wife’s death. However, a woman identifying herself as “Carolyn” told the outlet that she and Turner dated for 10 months, lived together in his home on Big Long Lake in Hudson, Indiana, and she alleged that he dumped her for gaining weight. 

“There were many untruths that I won’t take the time or energy to refute,” he wrote. He added that HR did get the detail right that he met this woman, “on the receiving line at Toni’s funeral.”

He added, “We had a connection but I pursued the relationship far too quickly,” and asked the woman to move in with him “before we really had a chance to get to know one another.”

Turner said that the former couple were “not compatible” on “several levels, “and that led to a very emotional breakup.”

“I  definitely could have been more generous, but I wasn’t far along enough in my grief to bridge those differences,” he said.

He claims Nist was ‘calculated’ and ‘rehearsed’

During their time on “The Golden Bachelor,” he thought of Nist, 72, “as innocently trying to be a good companion, manipulated by others to overshare. Naturally talkative, she can put words together!”

He quipped, “Turns out, I was the easiest to manipulate.”

As he watched episodes, he found that his opinion of Nist changed. Watching her onscreen, he thought she was “unable to read the room.” And, while their conversations were “breezy,” Turner noted, “something about her answers felt rehearsed.” 

He felt that since Nist’s response to questions felt “calculated,” it “blocked” him from getting to know “the real her.” 

Turner found exchanges with List ‘difficult’ off-camera

Turner and Nist couldn’t be seen in public together after they got engaged, so their relationship was largely conducted over phone calls. 

“I found conversations with her difficult,” he revealed. 

“Her tone and delivery were the same whether she was talking about a problem at work or about picking up her morning smoothie. Theresa came off almost mechanical on the phone as we went through our nightly script of generic mundane questions …There was no way around it: our calls were awkward.” 

They finally got to spend time in-person one weekend in a penthouse overlooking Central Park. 

Things went sideways, however, when she was in charge of the shopping list and filled the fridge with only salmon, salad greens, and eggs.

“It had never occurred to me that there wouldn’t be what I call food, otherwise known as carbohydrates of any kind,” he quipped. 

He felt like Theresa had misrepresented herself 

Turner recalled how his phone calls with Nist were, “growing more strained with every conversation.” 

Originally, Turner, who lives in Indiana, and Nist, who lives in New Jersey, had agreed to compromise and move to Charleston, South Carolina. But, she later told Turner that she couldn’t quit her job yet, as she had to still work to have retirement funds. 

“I was a little resentful because her economic situation wasn’t at all what she had described on the show, leaving me to wonder what else I had misunderstood, or she had misrepresented,” he said. 

He was further “unnerved” and “taken aback” when she told him, “if you pay all my expenses, I would quit right now.” 

Turner said he was “disillusioned” by Nist’s “lack of team spirit” in expecting him to shoulder the burden of the expenses. 

He felt like Nist shut him out of the wedding 

Nist “took over” the plans for their wedding, Turner penned. 

She also “blew off” his request for her to model the wedding lingerie.

“I was getting worried that Theresa was more interested in the trappings of getting married than in whom she was marrying or what her married life was going to be like!” he said. 

“Over the course of the wedding planning, it became painfully apparent how different our priorities were. All I wanted to do was be with her, she was so engrossed in planning her dream wedding, however, that I all but disappeared.” 

Turner said that Nist also seemed more interested in her daughter’s approval than in his. They shut down his suggestions for music, and Nist and her daughter, “gave me the sense that I was going to be a guest at my own wedding.”

He claims Nist wanted to spend $5 million on a house  

During the lead up to their wedding, “the more we talked, the more problems seemed to arise,” said Turner. 

As he and Nist looked at homes for their planned married life in Charleston, he said he was looking in the $1 million range, while Nist was looking at houses in the $4 to $5 million range. 

“Her assumptions about the kind of house we were looking for were hugely different from mine,” he said. “Had Theresa come to expect the kind of lifestyle we’d had when the production company was footing the bill?”

Turner had serious doubts before the wedding  — and told Nist

“I had a major case of the bah humbugs, but I kept it to myself,” he recalled. “As it got closer and closer to our wedding date, my doubts about Theresea grew.”

He didn’t tell his daughters, “because I did not want them coming down from the sky-high euphoria surrounding all the ‘Golden Bachelor’ hype.” 

When he asked his friends in Indiana for advice, they told him that Nist had an “east coast mentality.”

Turner described that as an assumption that it was a “given” that you would “go to only the classiest restaurants, wear expensive clothes, hobnob with the richest and most influential people you could find at any given time, and live in the fanciest house you could afford.” 

Turner said that the phrase “east coast mentality” became code for “the signs of incompatibility that were getting larger with each passing day.” 

He said he brought up his doubts to Nist, who told him there was “nothing to fear.” 

Turner freaked out over how Nist handled their prenup

Turner said that before their televised wedding, his doubts turned into “full-blown alarm with the way she handled the prenup.” 

He insisted on a prenup, while Nist didn’t think it was necessary. Then, she dragged her feet on signing it. She’d go on to incorrectly sign it despite his instructions — so it wasn’t usable. 

Right before the wedding, he said, “I had a stress hangover about getting that prenup signed, which led to the worst case of cold feet.” 

He confided in Faith Martin, a fellow “Golden Bachelor” contestant that he’d since become friends with. “Going through with this wedding is the wrong thing to do….I’m completely trapped,” he recalled telling her.  

Nist made him sleep on the couch after their wedding

Turner said that he wouldn’t blame anyone for calling him a “phony” when he exchanged vows with Nist, “but I still committed to the sacred institution with all my heart.” 

After the wedding, he went to his new wife’s home to spend time with her. Their honeymoon didn’t have an auspicious start, as she asked him to sleep on the sofa.

“Physical intimacy wasn’t going to bond Theresa and me either,” Turner said. 

He recalled how Nist told him, “Tomorrow’s a big workday, I need a good night’s sleep. Do you mind sleeping on the sofa?” 

Turner wrote, “’Yeah no problem’ were the words that came out of my mouth, but I remember thinking, ‘why? We’re married!’” 

“I did not want to make waves, especially on my first night in her home,” he wrote. “The non confrontational route turned out to be a mistake, because one night on her couch turned into two and then three.” 

Nist’s behavior was “very different” from the version of her that he encountered on the show, he said. “At the resort, her behavior regarding intimacy was comfortable, even forward.” 

But after their marriage, “she ignored opportunities for intimacy.”

He added, “I had a really hard time making sense of it…..the rejection I got from Theresa rattled me deeply – and stayed with me for a long time.”

The pair dealt with constant conflict

Turner said that sleeping on the couch made him “a little bitter” — but it wasn’t their only issue.

“One night, while driving to dinner, I went five miles over the speed limit in Shrewsbury, and you would have thought I had a gun to her head the way she reacted,” he recalled. 

Another night, when the former couple was getting ready to go out, “Theresa looked at me and pointed up and down like a kindergarten teacher” and told him to change outfits because “you’re not wearing that.”

Turner quipped, “I wondered why I had driven fourteen hours to sleep alone and have my wardrobe criticized.” 

He recalled feeling a “near-constant low hum of conflict as we continued to confront our difference in schedules, eating habits, and plans to see each other.” 

The pair had a ‘horribly awkward’ goodbye before officially pulling the plug

“We shared a horribly awkward goodbye at the airport,” he wrote. “The light kiss on the cheek and gentle hug we exchanged had all the warmth of a meeting between distant cousins.”

Turner said he felt “relieved” their planned week together in person was over. “In the weeks that followed, I was uncomfortable remembering the vows I had spoken at our wedding.” 

Finally, the former couple talked and agreed they “had acted in haste in getting married,” he said. 

He said he briefly had ‘suicidal thoughts’

The backlash to their breakup announcement left Turner in “a very dark place” and feeling like a “failure.”

He felt like Nist put out a “narrative in which she was a victim” and he was becoming “more and more depressed.” 

When friends invited him to social activities he used to like such as dinner, bowling, or pickleball, “instead of enthusiastically joining in like I would have in the past, I would try to figure out who would be there and the reactions I could expect from them,” he explained. “If there would be a lot of comments about the rumors and press about me.”

Even people who were nice made Turner want to say “please, stop talking about it!” he recalled. “I was sick of talking about myself. I wanted to be invisible.” 

One night when he was in bed staring at the ceiling, “it all became too much,” he wrote. “And for the briefest of moments, I thought about putting a gun to my head.” 

“Just as quickly, though, I thought of Jenny and Angie. I could never do that to my daughters, but I don’t believe I truly wanted to kill myself,” he continued. “My suicidal thoughts were more an expression of my desire to disappear…..[this] pain…..seemed like it was never going away.” 

Nist allegedly read a ‘How to Win the Bachelor’ book on set

Turner’s “dark period” eventually ended in part due to the friendships he formed with other women on “The Golden Bachelor,” such as Faith Martin, Nancy Hulkower, Susan Noles, and Kathy Swarts.

“They voiced in near unison a sense of betrayal. They understood it because they felt betrayed too,” said Turner. 

In Dec. 2024, Turner also revealed that he was diagnosed with a slow-growing “bone marrow cancer” called Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia. After his cancer diagnosis, he notified Nist. 

“She never called to see what was going on or how I was doing…..to be that insignificant to someone I had married, albeit briefly, was very painful,” he wrote.

Turner said he couldn’t stop questioning why Nist had participated on the show. 

“Why did she enter a process that required such a leap of faith if she was going to be inflexible later?” he added. Fellow contestants told him that Nist was allegedly reading the book, “How to Win the Bachelor,” during production.  

“There was something about the image of Theresa curled up on one of the couches, planning her strategy to win a rose, that made me sick to my stomach,” he wrote. “It made me think that her goal was never to find the next love of her life, it was to win.” 

The other women felt betrayed because “they felt like Theresa had cheated them out of a chance to find love, too,” he said. After learning more about her from the other women, Turner felt “gullible.”

“I couldn’t believe I’d made such a stupid mistake.”