‘Golden Bachelor’ host Jesse Palmer breaks silence on Gerry Turner’s shock divorce
· New York PostThis rose has wilted.
Jesse Palmer, who hosted “The Golden Bachelor,” says he wishes Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist “nothing but happiness” after the pair announced that they were filing for divorce after being married for only three months.
“My heart is forever with these two beautiful souls,” Palmer, 45, wrote in an Instagram post on Saturday. “I am eternally grateful to have gotten to know Gerry and Theresa and to have been a small part of their journey.”
“I learned a lot about life, love and family watching and talking with them,” Palmer added. “Wishing them and their families both nothing but happiness.”
Turner and Nist put on a united front while announcing their divorce during an interview on “Good Morning America” on Friday.
“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 we’ve kind of come to the conclusion mutually that it’s probably time for us to dissolve our marriage,” Turner, 72, told host Juju Chang.
“We just feel like it’s best for the happiness of each of us to live apart,” Turner said. “I still love this person. There’s no doubt in my mind.”
According to Nist, 70, much of the decision to nullify the marriage came when they couldn’t decide on a place to live.
“We looked at homes in South Carolina, we considered New Jersey, and we just looked at homes after home,” the New Jersey native added. “But we never got to the point where we made that decision.”
“I still love you,” the two said to each other saying that they had agreed on a prenup prior to saying “I do” and that they still consider each other “best friends.”
The pair stated that they still plan to keep in touch.
According to legal documents obtained by The Post, Turner filed the petition in his hometown of Petersburg, Indiana.
The documents revealed that the official date of separation was April 12 and that the “Golden Bachelor” contestant cited “irretrievable breakdown” as the reason for dissolving the marriage.
Per Indiana law, a divorce based on an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage is known as a “no-fault” divorce and is not grounded upon wrong-doing or marital misconduct of the husband or wife.
Reports of the divorce come after the pair became engaged in November 2023 when Turner, the first-ever contestant on the show, proposed to Nist over runner-up Leslie Fhima in Costa Rica.
Nist and Turner later wed in an ABC-televised ceremony on Jan. 4.
According to Nist, Turner’s checkered dating history did not play a factor in their split.
“Gerry had already discussed that with me,” Nist told “GMA” referring to a Hollywood Reporter article that was released prior to their wedding which claimed Turner had dated multiple women after the death of his wife, Toni, and even fat-shamed one of his previous partners.
“He had explained it to me before the report was ever released,” Nist said, “so we were good with that.
“That didn’t play into it.”
At the time of the article’s release, Turner slammed the allegations.
“I guess I would say this: I dated a number of women, but then it becomes an issue of how you define whether you’re in a relationship,” Turner told veteran news anchor Katie Couric.
Turner later told Couric, 66, that he wanted “to focus on what’s going on now.”