First Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist just proved that breaking up shortly after the ABC cameras stop filming isn't just for the youngsters. The couple stunned fans by announcing their divorce Friday — once again over the air — on Good Morning America to be exact, just three months after their special live televised wedding event captivated Bachelor nation.
The Golden Bachelor tried to sell itself as a more heartfelt, authentic counterpart to the shenanigans of the young singles on The Bachelor, The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise, but now will have to contend with the notion that's plagued the franchise from the start that it's all awfully fake and artificial.
Turner and Nist gave an exclusive interview to Juju Chang to reveal the news.
“Theresa and I have had a number of heart-to-heart conversations, and we’ve looked closely at our situation, our living situation, so forth and — and we’ve kind of come to the conclusion mutually that it’s probably time for us to — dissolve our marriage,” Turner said.
“Get a divorce?” Chang clarified. “Yes,” Turner said.
Nist added, “We have received so much love and support from so many people who watched ‘The Golden Bachelor,' and I don’t think we can tell you how many people told us that it gave them so much hope. We want none of that to change for anybody.”
Well… good luck with that. The Golden Bachelor was a surprise hit when it premiered last fall, with viewers thinking they were getting a glimpse of an older, wiser, more mature take on love. Now the viewing public is left with the sour impression that seniors are as bad at making love last as anyone else when it's televised as a broadcast network reality show.
“The thing that strikes me the most in our conversations, it’s been how dedicated both of us are to our families …” Turner continued. “So we look at these situations and I think we just feel like it’s best for the happiness of each of us to, to live apart.”
Chang followed up asking how things could have gone south so quickly when the two gushed about how deeply committed they were to making this work. “That was the plan,” Nist shrugged.
“We looked at homes in South Carolina, we considered New Jersey, and we just looked at homes after home, but we never got to the point where we made that decision,” she added.
Turner and Nist held hands through the interview and insisted they had not fallen out of love.
“I still love this person,” said Turner. “There’s no doubt in my mind, I still am in love with her. I root for her every day.”
“Yeah, I still love him,” Nist chimed in.
Turner and Nist stressed that their message for others is to “‘Stay in it, stay hopeful,'” said Nist, “because we are.”
It was mostly butterflies and rainbows for the happy couple during their courtship on the ABC series, culminating with Turner asking Nist to marry him on the season 1 finale of The Golden Bachelor, which aired on November 30. They then had a televised wedding special that aired on ABC January 4th, with their children, grandchildren and Golden Bachelor contestants in attendance.
What went wrong for the happy couple?
If there were any public causes for concern for the marriage, they mostly centered on Gerry Turner being allegedly less-than-fully-transparent about his relationship history on the show. He presented himself on the show as looking for love for the first time since the passing of his wife he'd been married to for 43 years.
Later, it was revealed that Turner had a long-term relationship with a woman after his wife's death, and also dated others. But Nist insisted in the Juju Chang interview that this wasn't the reason for the split.
“Gerry had already discussed that with me,” Nist explained. “He had explained it to me before the report was ever released, so we were good with that.”
Regarding the public impression of this announcement seeming rather abrupt after only three months of marriage, Nist told viewers, “We didn't want to pretend to anybody.”
The couple also said that they will give their rings back. “I think that’s the rule,” Nist joked.
“But you know what? We don't have to give back the memories,” added Gerry ‘aw shucks' Turner.
ABC now has its work cut out for it to find (and vet) a Golden Bachelorette who might actually be able to make love last. The franchise does not have a very good track record for couples staying together after the cameras stop rolling.
Nist's advice to whoever the new Golden Bachelorette is sounds simple enough, “be authentic, be yourself.” But that's always tricky where a drama-centered reality show is concerned.
It's almost as if looking for love on a televised reality show isn't the best way to go about the process, shocking as that may sound. But as long as viewers keep watching it, ABC will undoubtedly keep churning out Bachelor and Bachelorette versions for every stage of the human life cycle.
Heck, why stop there? Maybe viewers would want to see a Bachelor-spinoff centered on the courting rituals of the animal kingdom as well.
In any case, the first Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner and his betrothed Theresa Nist are dunzo. No word yet if ABC will be doing a live televised special of their divorce proceedings.
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