The big drama on The Golden Bachelor’s premiere season centered on Kathy Swarts and Theresa Nist.
Theresa formed an early connection with the lead, Gerry Turner, and freely shared her experience with the other women in the house.
That didn’t sit well with Kathy, who thought Theresa should keep her stories to herself — and had quite a bit to say about it.
When the drama started, Kathy didn’t come to Theresa directly, though, instead taking her complaints to the other women in the mansion.
When Kathy did confront Theresa, both women ended up crying to Gerry about it — with varying stories about what happened.
But when Kathy told Theresa to “zip it,” Gerry called her out and reminded her that she was getting just as much attention as Theresa was, then he sent her home after the following rose ceremony.
Gerry Turner talks drama between Kathy and Theresa
Now, Gerry is opening up about the big drama on the show, and he’s sharing whether it was as big as it looked at the time.
While speaking with Glamour, he was asked if the drama was really that dramatic and if he felt differently about it now that he’s seen it play out on the show.
“No. Bear in mind that my second career was in mediation and being trained to watch and listen and get the message from facial expression and body language,” Gerry explained.
He continued, “So I had a different read. It may not have been a huge thing, but I was committed in that journey to not allow things to get carried away in drama. We were a mature group—all of us—and we held each other in respect and accountable. We all loved each other. So, when things started to go astray, I really wanted to step in and bring things back [to normal] quickly.”
Gerry blasted by The Golden Bachelor viewers after the last episode
Gerry Turner has been held in high regard, with many The Golden Bachelor viewers praising him for being a gentleman and shutting down the drama early.
But now, some are taking issue with what happened during the Hometown Dates, where they think Gerry spread his love around just a bit too much.
He held back a bit with Theresa, offering a simple “love you” when she declared her love for him. But he went all in with Faith and Leslie, telling him he loved them, he was in love with them, and even telling Faith’s family how much he loved her.
This is a Ben Higgins situation if we’ve ever seen one, and that former Bachelor star already weighed in on it as one of the few coming to Gerry’s defense.
It seems that many viewers were disappointed in Gerry because we expected him to be more mature and hold off any love declarations for the final rose ceremony. However, this could be a setup for The Golden Bachelorette announcement when that comes, and it could be a JoJo Fletcher-type redemption moment for the lady who got an “I love you” but didn’t get the final rose.
We’ll have to wait and see.
The Golden Bachelor airs on Thursdays at 8/7c on ABC.