The Golden Bachelor couple Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist’s divorce had more to do with just distance.
“You really can’t know somebody in four weeks. I’ll say that. That’s all I can say,” Theresa, 71, said during her “Almost Famous” podcast appearance on Tuesday, November 5. “I don’t want to say any more than that.”
“It’s not something I want to discuss at this point,” Theresa continued to podcast hosts Ben Higgins and Ashley Iaconetti, referring to the reasons for her and Gerry’s divorce. “It’s not just the location thing. That’s all I’ll say.”
Theresa noted that her and Gerry’s “plan” was to move to Charleston, South Carolina — something that had been talked about at length publicly. (Theresa lives in New Jersey while Gerry’s home is in Indiana.)
Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist have explained why they decided to end their marriage just three months after their Golden Wedding. “Theresa and I have had a number of heart-to-heart conversations,” Gerry, 72, said during the Friday, April 12, broadcast of Good Morning America. “We’ve looked closely at our living situations and we’ve kind of […]
“I wasn’t ready to sell my home until we found a home. We never got to the point where we found a home,” Theresa said. “Gerry came up with the idea of doing six weeks there and six weeks here. I truly wanted to have our home together. I was willing to move. I wanted to have our big home where our family could come visit us. I didn’t want to go back and forth to our homes.”
Initially, that was what they “had agreed upon” but plans changed.
Theresa Nist, Gerry Turner. Disney/Eric McCandless
“It wasn’t what we had discussed,” she continued. “We had never discussed six weeks here, six weeks there.”
Theresa and Gerry, 73, were the first couple to come out of the Golden Bachelor franchise. Their engagement aired via ABC when the Golden Bachelor finale premiered in November 2023. They got married in a televised wedding special this past January.
Theresa explained on Tuesday’s podcast episode that they moved quickly with “faith and hope” that the marriage would work out.
“They weren’t offering [the wedding] later. It was now. And we said, ‘If we really are going to get married, we should do it because we’re going to get the wedding of our dreams.’ We are older, why waste any time? Do it now,” she recalled. “There was a time constraint on the offer.”
Three months after their televised wedding, Theresa and Gerry went on Good Morning America to announce that they were getting a divorce. Us Weekly confirmed in June that they signed a marital settlement agreement.
Theresa Nist, Gerry Turner. Disney/Eric McCandless; Taylor Hill/WireImage
While Theresa did say that the distance wasn’t the deciding factor in their divorce, she did admit that living closer might have given her and Gerry “a better chance” at staying together in the long run.
“You just think the world wants a love story and they want you to move. You don’t know how you’re going to feel until you’re really faced with that decision,” she added. “It’s very difficult. I do want to be in love. I do want to be with someone. I think love is for me the most important thing and it’s love of family and to have a partner in life is what I want.”
