Gerry Turner has opened up about his divorce from Theresa Knist in a new interview with People Magazine.
And, in the process, the first Golden Bachelor has made quite a shocking and disturbing admission.
“There’s a topic I didn’t want to talk about until now,” Turner tells People. He said he hoped this new information would “resolve many of the mysteries surrounding what happened in February, March and April.”
In fact, ABC viewers were surprised when they learned that Turner and Nyst were filing for divorce just months after their wedding aired on the network.
The former spouses claimed at the time that they could not choose a place to live, citing distance.
Turner says now, “As Theresa and I were working so hard to figure out our lifestyle and where we would live and how we would run our lives, unfortunately I got cancer.”
Turner says this year she was diagnosed with a slow-growing “bone marrow cancer” with a “really long name” called Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia.
(According to the Mayo Clinic, the disease causes white blood cells to turn into cancer cells and form in the bone marrow, the spongy substance inside the bones where blood cells are made.)
“Unfortunately, there is no cure. So it has a huge impact on every decision I make,” the reality star explains about the diagnosis.
“It was as if 10 tons of concrete had been dropped on me. And I was a little bit in denial for a while, I just didn’t want to admit it.
After revealing her health update to Nist a month after exchanging vows, Turner received more testing and a bone marrow biopsy.
Turner recalled “I decided to tell him what I knew and I explained the situation to him” in March.
Reflecting on telling Nist the diagnosis, he says his then-wife was “surprised” by the development, which he completely understood.
Turner continued, “I wanted my life to go on as normally as possible, and that led me to believe that being as normal as possible meant spending time with my family, my two daughters, my two sons-in-law, my granddaughters. Is.” , “And the importance of finding a way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority.”
Makes sense, right? He hasn’t actually known Nist for very long.
In April, Gerry and Theresa said on Good Morning America, “We have mutually come to the conclusion that perhaps it is time for us to end our marriage.”
The divorce was finalized in June.
Turner says of the separation from Nist, “When you get hit with news like this and after a few days or a few weeks the shock wears off and you regroup and you realize that your What’s important to you, so that’s where you start moving forward.”
“And I hope that people will look back now and understand that it had a huge impact on my decisions and I think probably Theresa’s as well.”
It’s unclear how much time Turner has left, but he wants to make the most of it.
“I’m going to bring as much joy into my life as possible and enjoy every moment,” he tells People. “And when I’m gone, I’m gone, but I won’t have regrets.”