Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner reveals in his recent memoir that he struggled with suicidal ideation within the wake of his split from Theresa Nist, Us Weekly can confirm.
In an excerpt from the book, titled Golden Years: What I’ve Learned From Love, Loss, and Reality TV, and obtained by TMZ on Monday, November 3, Turner, 74, details his shame — and fleeting suicidal thoughts — after he and Nist, 72, announced their divorce in April 2024. (The Golden Bachelor exes tied the knot three months earlier on ABC.)
“If there can be a whole lot of comments in regards to the rumors and press about me, irrespective of how well meant and sympathetic they were (Gerry we’re-so-sorry stuff), I didn’t need to go,” he wrote within the excerpt, which has been confirmed by Us. “I began avoiding people altogether, whether by walking circuitously to my destination so I didn’t pass a friend’s house or parking behind the supermarket and walking through the less trafficked entrance so I didn’t pass the greeter.”
Turner added, “People attempting to be supportive were essentially the most difficult to take care of. I could just write off the haters, but how could I tell those whose intentions were good, ‘Please, stop talking about it!’ I used to be sick of talking about myself. I desired to be invisible.”
He found himself battling intrusive thoughts, day and night.
“At a certain point,” he wrote, “I didn’t even need to get off the bed. Once I went to sleep at night, I’d try to seek out something positive and uplifting to take into consideration, however the horrible comments were too loud.”
Turner continued, “One night, while I used to be lying in bed and staring up on the ceiling, all of it became an excessive amount of, and for the briefest of moments, I thought of putting a gun to my head. Just as quickly though, I believed of [daughters] Jenny and Angie. I could never do this to my daughters, but I don’t consider I actually desired to kill myself. My suicidal thoughts were more of an expression of my desire to vanish.”
The fact star said that he was “used to having a marathon mentality whereby I could endure any sort of pain for a time because I knew it could eventually go away. This gave the look of it was never going away.”
In October, Turner revealed that he’s happily engaged to Lana Sutton. Last week, he appeared on the “Bachelor Blissful Hour” podcast last week to handle criticism that he had moved on too soon after divorcing one yr earlier.
“I don’t need to sound disrespectful in any respect. I don’t consider myself as being divorced,” Turner said on the October 28 episode, explaining, “It was such a short while and it was, you already know, in a man-made environment that I even have to stop myself and say, ‘Yeah, you already know what? I’m divorced. It’s not like I’m that guy that was married 43 years after which did nothing.’ I’m divorced.”
Turner and Nist met in the course of the inaugural season of 2023’s The Golden Bachelor, and exchanged vows during a televised ceremony in January 2024.
Turner filed for divorce that April, citing an “irretrievable breakdown” of their marriage as the explanation for the split.
In Golden Years, Turner claimed he told Faith Martin — the second runner-up on the show — that he felt “trapped” ahead of marrying Nist. While recalling the moment during an exclusive interview with Us, Turner shared that he “felt like [he] was doing the appropriate thing” by walking down the aisle.