Gerry Turner was right about one thing when he rushed to the altar to marry Theresa Nist last year — you never know what the future holds.
The pair got married within a couple of months of the finale in an elaborate televised wedding attended by many of Bachelor Nation’s biggest stars.
Susan Noles officiated, and Kathy Swarts served as a pre-wedding co-host — elevating their post-Golden Bachelor careers.
Unfortunately, Gerry and Theresa’s relationship didn’t make it after the pair proved that even at their age, taking the time to get to know your partner is paramount.
Afterward, Theresa stayed in Bachelor Nation’s good graces while Gerry took the brunt of the fallout from the very public breakup.
Now, Gerry is back with even more unfortunate news as he reveals how a recent health visit turned into a huge nightmare.
Gerry Turner has incurable cancer
Gerry Turner sat down with PEOPLE for a candid interview that was shared on Wednesday and it shed even more light on his split from Theresa — as well as the huge health challenges he’s currently facing.
According to The Golden Bachelor star, distance, the inability to decide where to live, and that infamous argument about Indiana farmland actually weren’t the only factors that played into their decision to divorce.
“There’s a topic that I haven’t wanted to talk about until now,” Gerry began. “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.”
He continued, “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.”
Gerry explained how he found out, recalling a pickleball injury that he suffered three years prior to his stint on the ABC dating spinoff and how he finally got around to seeing a doctor about it.
“Finally I got around to going [to the doctor] and the orthopedic surgeon said, ‘Yeah Gerry, there’s not much we can do for your shoulder, but there are some unusual blood markers here,'” Gerry explained.
“And so an orthopedic surgeon went to my family doctor, my family doctor referred me to an oncologist, and now I’m working with a hematology-oncology group in Fort Wayne.”
Gerry was diagnosed with Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, a slow-growing bone marrow cancer that, unfortunately, has no cure.
“Unfortunately, there’s no cure for it. So that weighs heavily in every decision I make,” he admitted.
“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.”
Gerry Turner explained why he split from Theresa Nist after cancer news
Gerry explained that, initially, doctors thought it was a blood disorder, which he told Theresa about in February as he was in the midst of testing to get a clearer diagnosis and treatment plan.
By March, Gerry and his doctors knew that it was more than just a blood disorder, and he shared the news with Theresa, whom he described as “awestruck” to learn of her brand new husband’s diagnosis.
From there, Gerry said that his priorities began to shift. He wanted to spend as much time as possible with his family, and while his relationship with Theresa was still important, it “became less of a priority.”
As for the hate he has received for quickly ending his Golden Bachelor marriage, Gerry called the way fans reacted as “unfair” and said, “Hopefully they’ll 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.”
The Golden Bachelor is currently on hiatus on ABC.