Gerry Turner admits he almost turned down The Golden Bachelor role

Gerry Turner almost didn’t dazzle us as the first The Golden Bachelor lead.

It’s a good thing he didn’t turn it down, too, because Bachelor Nation has forever changed after getting to know the 72-year-old widower.

He has taken over our Thursday nights and given The Golden Bachelor viewers a refreshing dose of empathy and kindness that the franchise hasn’t seen before.

Not only that, but the women vying for his love have been some of the most interesting and authentic, clearly not doing the show to enhance their influencer careers and paychecks, as those from the original show have been accused.

That’s also why it’s not surprising that he took the decision to join the show very seriously.

And also, why it almost didn’t happen.

Gerry Turner explains his thought process when accepting The Golden Bachelor role

One of the reasons Gerry hesitated to accept a role as the first lead on The Golden Bachelor was that he was reluctant to “give up a lot of my personal freedoms,” he told Us Weekly.

It’s no secret that production wants a Bachelor star to act a certain way, and to say certain things that might feel awkward for a senior citizen. So far, The Golden Bachelor format has followed the original Bachelor show in almost every way.

He also admitted that it was hard for him to let go and just get into the process early on in the season — a daunting task for a man already set in his ways as he faces 22 new women who all want to get to know him.

“Don’t wait a few days, don’t wait a week. Do it tonight,” Gerry said of letting go. “Do it right now and life will be easier.”

Gerry knew what to expect from previous seasons of The Bachelor

If you thought Gerry Turner didn’t know what to expect when he began the process, you thought wrong.

It turns out that Gerry had watched previous seasons of both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette before agreeing to do the show.

And he assured fans that the drama between Kathy and Theresa wasn’t really as big as it seemed while it played out on TV.

“There was what I would consider an insignificant amount of drama,” he explained. “Nothing like what is seen in some of the other seasons with The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. I think really the people that were involved were just simply speaking a different language. And as far as me refereeing, that’s not a problem. My second career was in mediation, so getting people to talk to each other and find agreement is one of the things that I was trained to do.”

A career in mediation? Well, that’s not surprising at all after watching him interact with the women and diffuse conflict much faster than any Bachelor star in the past.

The Golden Bachelor airs on Thursdays at 8/7c on ABC.