Is "The Golden Bachelor" Gerry Turner A Walking Red Flag?—Here's What His Ex Said About Him

Everyone deserves to find love – but shows like Love is Blind, Too Hot to Handle, and The Bachelor usually feature adults under 40. Naturally, people were pleasantly surprised to hear that single seniors finally get a chance at romance on The Golden Bachelor.

The show's premise is simple: 72-year-old Gerry Turner chooses one lucky woman out of 22 contestants. You can read more about Turner and the show here.

The Truth about Gerry Turner

The show only aired in late September this year, but things aren't looking good for Turner already. Turner has gained a lot of sympathy from viewers for grieving his late wife, Toni. He's also very gentlemanly toward the contestants and seems authentic. The series has earned high ratings and broke records for ABC's franchise, but the spinoff might be showing us a different side of the old bachelor.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Turner's on-screen persona differs from reality. He was depicted as a retired restaurateur, yet his LinkedIn profile showed he was employed after retirement age. He also had a nearly three-year relationship that started following his wife's passing (after one month, to be exact). Producers did not know about this. The problem here isn't that he started seeing women after his wife's death – viewers are displeased with how Turner was presented as someone who had experienced a lack of romance after the tragedy.

The tea is hot. The publication reported that Turner met a woman (the article calls her Carolyn) when he was working as a maintenance man at the Vera French Mental Health Center. "Attractive and 14 years his junior, she was a staff accountant at the mental health center. They dated for 10 months, and then lived together for one year and nine months. This account is drawn from interviews with Carolyn (who requested not to be named to protect her privacy), as well as friends she confided in at the time and text messages with Gerry, among other documents."

They also interviewed Turner's friend, who suggested that the silver-haired bachelor "dated a couple of women. They weren’t all long-term, but they…weren’t short-term either. … He was with a couple of women for a decent amount of time, but it just didn’t work out.”

Carolyn's friend, Susan McCreary, also spilled. “When Carolyn and Gerry first started dating [in September 2017], my husband and I took them to an Iowa [Hawkeyes] football game,” she told the outlet. “I thought, ‘This guy’s legit. This guy’s a really good guy for her.’”

McCreary recalled hearing Turner say he had not been kissed in six years on the show. “And I’m like, what? He’s got to know that people are paying attention to this show. I’m just flabbergasted.” Dang it, Gerry, we were all rooting for you!

“Damn, I go to bed at night thinking of you and wake up in the morning thinking of you,” Turner texted Carolyn on September 2, 2017 (three months after Toni's death), per THR. He allegedly said something similar to Leslie, the fitness instructor of Prince who became one of the two finalists. “I have to have you with my morning coffee, I have to have you when I go to bed at night," Turner told her while they were in Costa Rica.

Carolyn Exposes Gerry Turner

So what does Carolyn have to say about all this? She revealed that the staff at the mental health center was shocked after Toni passed away in the summer of 2017. “Then, we get the shocking news that Toni passed away, so most everyone at the office went to the visitation in July,” she said. “Then, in August, I got a phone call from Gerry. I was so shocked to hear from him.” 

Turner asked Carolyn if she could help him donate Toni's work clothes to Dress for Success. She agreed, and Turner took her to dinner "as a thank you." “The idea that I’d go out with a recent widower just mortifies me,” Carolyn explained. “I just really didn’t see it. Until I went back and looked at my text messages, I never realized Gerry’s texts had turned hot and heavy so relatively soon.”

She got another text not too long after that. "I got LUCKY when you first said you would go to dinner with me two weeks ago. I mean how often does an old geezer get the beautiful girl?” he joked. Soon after, Turner messaged: “You are the right woman for me. No need to look further.”

As they got closer, Turner urged Carolyn to move in with him. She eventually agreed after falling hard and spending time at his beautiful home. She moved in in July 2018. What came next wasn't a ring or more romance. Instead, Turner told Carolyn that her share of expenses would be about $1,000 monthly. She managed to negotiate it down to $850. She'd pay for her half in advance for restaurant dinners, and Turner would pay for the whole tab once he got the check.

In 2019, Carolyn reportedly gained 10 pounds from stress. As she packed for Turner's high school reunion, he told her, "I'm not taking you to the reunion looking like that." The comment led to their break up, and she decided to move out. She packed all her belongings alone on the first day and was so frazzled that she fell down the stairs. She needed foot surgery the day after. Turner returned home that night, and Carolyn alleges that he accused her of "using the fall as an excuse to prolong her stay and suggested that she was planning to sue him for causing the injury." Turner refused to let her stay at his lake house and told her to go to the hotel.

Gerry Turner Breaks Silence on Dating after His Wife’s Death

Turner told People that it didn't work out when he tried to date other women after his wife's passing, and that “every time I thought I was ready, I realized I wasn't.” He said, “Somehow, I got it in my head that if you grieve for a year, that at the end of the year, you should be OK. It absolutely wasn't the case.”

“One failure led to another for a variety of reasons,” he admitted. “It was actually about three and a half or four years, I just finally realized that, ‘OK, I'm happy with myself. If I am going to be alone, I can deal with it.’” When asked about the finale, he didn't give too many details, but Turner said he's happy at this point in his life. We hope Carolyn can say the same.

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