Gerry Turner is sharing a sobering update on his health.
The “Golden Bachelor” star revealed that he has an incurable form of bone marrow cancer called Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia and said the diagnosis played a part in his breakup with Theresa Nist, whom he married on live TV in January 2024.
Turner, 72, shared the news in an interview with People.
“Unfortunately, there’s no cure for it. So that weighs heavily in every decision I make,” he said. “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.”
Per the Mayo Clinic, Waldenström macroglobulinemia is a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that originates in the white blood cells, transforming some of them into cancer cells that build up in bone marrow. The Mayo Clinic said this type of cancer grows slowly and “may not cause symptoms for years.”
At first hesitant to speak about the cancer, Turner said he felt compelled to after getting involved with charities. He also thought going public with his diagnosis might “clear up a lot of mystery” surrounding his split from Nist in the spring of 2024.
After getting engaged on the ABC dating series “The Golden Bachelor,” the couple tied the knot in a live televised ceremony in January 2024. Three months later, in April, Turner filed for divorce.
During an interview on ABC at the time, Turner said the decision came out of a “number of heart-to-heart conversations” about “our situation, our living situation, so forth.” Together, he said they decided “it’s probably time for us to — dissolve our marriage.”
Turner gave further context to the decision in his People interview.
“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,” Turner told People.
The father of two first started the journey to being diagnosed when he went to an orthopedic surgeon to address an old shoulder injury. After the doctor pointed out “some unusual blood markers,” Turner started the process of seeking answers, which led him to an oncologist.
Initially, oncologists suspected that the reality star had a “blood disorder.” Following several rounds of testing, including a bone marrow biopsy, Turner got an official diagnosis and shared the news with his new wife.
“Certainly, it was hard for me,” he said. “But the conversation was brief and I think (she was) a little bit awestruck by the news. So understandable.”
At the time, Turner and Nist — who live in Indiana and New Jersey, respectively — were in the process of figuring out where they would settle down.
Turner decided that uprooting his life after his diagnosis wasn’t the best route.
“I wanted my life to continue on as normal as possible, and that led me to believing that as normal as possible more meant spending time with my family, my two daughters, my two son-in-laws, my granddaughters,” he said. “And the importance of finding the way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority.”
After the couple announced their divorce, speculation ran rampant about what led to their breakup.
Now that he’s sharing his diagnosis, Turner hopes that the public will “look at things a little bit differently.”
“When you are hit with that kind of news and the shock wears off after a few days or a few weeks and you regroup and you realize what’s important to you, that’s where you start to move forward,” he explained. “And I hope that people understand in retrospect now that that had a huge bearing on my decisions and I think probably Theresa’s as well.”
Turner wishes nothing but “all of the good luck in the world” for Nist, calling their journey together a “cherished memory.”
“It was wonderful, and I certainly wish it would’ve had a different ending, that we would’ve found our way, that we would’ve found solutions to a problem. And most of all, that I would not have had a diagnosis that so strongly influenced my decisions and the direction I went,” he said.
Nist, on her end, shared a different story with the publication. From her experience, Turner’s cancer “wasn’t a factor” in ending the relationship — “at least not for me,” she said.
“If that was something on his part, maybe, I don’t know. But no, that didn’t factor into ending the relationship,” she said. “Part of it was the distance, but that wasn’t the only part. That’s really all I will say.”
This follows a cryptic remark in a November 2024 interview on the podcast “Almost Famous.”
“You really can’t know somebody in four weeks. I’ll just say that,” she said, and added “not just the location thing” led to their divorce.
Nist told People she wishes her ex-husband the best. “I wish him the best and that I know that he was in a very difficult situation and that good things will come to him,” she said.