The inaugural season of ABC's "The Golden Bachelor" ended about as well as anyone could have hoped. Gerry Turner was engaged to contestant Theresa Nist in the season finale and the pair were married soon thereafter.
Turner and Nist called it quits on ABC's "Good Morning America" just three months after tying the knot. And Turner is finally ready to talk about what led to their sudden change of heart. Turner told People in an interview published on Wednesday that he and Nist grew apart after Turner was diagnosed with cancer.
"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," he shared with the magazine. "It wasn't quite a rash, fast decision that people thought. That there was something else going on."
Turner said he was diagnosed with a form of bone marrow cancer called Waldenström's macroglobulinemia. He told the outlet that his then-wife was "awestruck" by their brief conversation about his diagnosis.
The news that he had cancer made Turner reevaluate how he wanted to spend his time.
"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 sons-in-law, my granddaughters," he said, noting that new addition Nist was suddenly on the back burner.
"The importance of finding the way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority," he said. "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."
