After revealing his incurable cancer diagnosis last year, The Golden Bachelor star Gerry Turner is sharing updates on both his health and heart. The
After revealing his incurable cancer diagnosis last year, The Golden Bachelor star Gerry Turner is sharing updates on both his health and heart. The 73-year-old retiree, who led the inaugural season of the spin-off dating series, was diagnosed with Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, a occasional bone marrow cancer that was detected after his visit to an orthopedic surgeon for a shoulder injury.
Four months after disclosing his diagnosis, “I feel great,” Turner said on Tuesday’s episode of the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast. “Until I have any symptoms, there’s no treatment. So I go frequently for blood tests. I’m on, like, a six-month schedule now, and I feel optimistic because the doctor has said, ‘Well, when you turn 75, we’re going to have to go three-month increments.’ So it’s telling me that at least he expects me to live another couple of years to get to that. But the bottom line is I feel really good.”
The Golden Bachelor star told People back in December that he learned of his condition only weeks before splitting from Theresa Nist, his final rose recipient whom he married in a televised wedding on ABC in January 2024. The couple separated after only three months of marriage, making theirs the shortest wedded union in Bachelor history. Last month, Turner informed Nist during a taping of the “After the Final Rose” episode of last season’s Bachelor that he is dating someone fresh. Turner said the pair had a “nice” conversation about the fresh relationship and that the exes are on “good terms.”
In regards to his newer romance, “I think at this point it’s going well,” he said on the podcast. “But I don’t want to say too much and jinx it. I’m trying to respectfully get to a point where there’s an acceptable amount of time from my divorce.” Turner added, “Maybe that’s an old-fashioned thought—maybe it doesn’t matter as much as I think it does, but to be respectful, I kind of want to slow roll this.”
When asked about the “waiting period” before receiving cancer treatment, Turner put a positive spin on his prognosis, noting that many people with Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia never develop symptoms necessitating treatment. “I mean this sincerely: From the time I got this diagnosis, it’s a privilege to live like you’re dying,” he said. “I don’t turn down anything. I feel like I’m more open to emotions. I’m more open to experiences.”
“The person I’m dating will say, ‘Do you want to go do…’ and before she even gets out the rest of the sentence, I will say yes. So I’m in on everything,” he continued. “And it makes life exciting because you kind of in the back of your head feel like you’ve got a lot of living to do and you don’t know how long you have to do it, so don’t turn down anything. And so, in a way, it’s really a good thing.”
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