Teresa Nest, Leslie Fahima and Faith Martin toast with Jerry Turner on ‘The Golden Bachelor’
Courtesy of Disney/John Fleenor
Jerry Turner won’t have Bachelor gold for much longer, as he’s set to get married in a wedding broadcast live on ABC.
During the live final on Thursday Golden Bachelorwhich included the engagement of series heroine Turner to Teresa Nest in Costa Rica. The couple announced that they would tie the knot on January 4, 2024. Golden wedding The special will air at 8pm and will be the franchise’s first televised wedding since BSC Favorites Sean Lowe and Catherine Giudici exchanged vows in 2014.
After host Jesse Palmer told Turner, 72, and Nest, 70, that the show would send the couple on a trip to Italy, Bachelor Gold replied: “We can use that as a honeymoon trip because we’re getting married.” We’ll do it as quickly as we can because, at our age, we don’t have a lot of time to waste. As soon as we can make a wedding plan, we will get married.
Runner-up Leslie Fahima tearfully broke up with Turner in Costa Rica after feeling he was not invested in their relationship, leading him to express that his feelings were stronger for Nest. “I felt devastated,” Fahima told Palmer during the “After the Final Rose” portion of the finale. “I broke down my walls, and I fell so much in love with him. I hadn’t fallen in love with anyone in a long time, so it was hard.”
Jerry Turner and Teresa Nest after their engagement Golden Bachelor
Disney/John Fleenor
When they were reunited during the live footage at the end, Fahima told Turner she felt “devastated” by their breakup and asked him where things went wrong. “It didn’t really go well, Leslie,” he replied. “It would have been better with someone else. It was the right person in the wrong direction.”
Turner was stunned in Costa Rica when she arrived for a potential proposal, telling her: “I’ve realized you’re not the right person for me to live with.” He paused before adding, “You’re the one I can’t live without.” Nest then laughed and assured him: “That was very good,” before getting down on one knee to propose.
Palmer asked Turner during “After the Final Rose” if his feelings for Nest developed history overnight. “There were moments in the conversation that were a subtle realization,” Turner said of his relationship with Nest, a financial services professional from New Jersey. “More and more with every passing moment, she showed her enthusiasm and her adventurous side and all that. Every one of them was an added bonus.”
Although Turner demurred when asked about their physical relationship in the fantasy suite, Nest shouted, “I took his shoes off,” evoking a phrase used memorably during the season. After the audience laughed, she joked: “No, with kisses.”
Fahima was left devastated during the finale when Turner ended their relationship shortly after introducing her to his two daughters and granddaughters. Fahima explained that she was particularly hurt because Turner declared his love for her on the fantasy suite date and made comments that prompted her to start planning their future together.
“My heart is broken again,” Fahima told Turner in Costa Rica. “But now I have to do it in front of the whole world to see again how broken I am, and how no one chooses me. You didn’t choose me – again. And that night, you made it seem like you chose me. You said things to me that made me think that would be the case. She led me down the road, then took a turn and left me there, and that’s how I feel.
Nest and Turner bonded over their shared grief over the loss of their spouses. Turner, described by ABC as a retired restaurant owner from Indiana, lost Toni, his high school sweetheart and wife of 43 years, when she died in 2017 after contracting a bacterial infection. Meanwhile, Nest’s husband of 42 years, Billy, died of kidney failure.
In an article I published Hollywood Reporter Questioning the show’s narrative that Turner had not dated since before his marriage, a woman identified herself as Turner’s ex-girlfriend and said they began dating a month after his wife’s death, leading to a relationship that lasted more than two years. The woman, who requested to remain anonymous, said she moved from Iowa to live with Turner at his home in Indiana before he ended the relationship in early 2020.