The season finale of The Golden Bachelor saw Gerry Tuner face his final decision between Leslie Fhima and Theresa Nist, but a last-minute surprise reveals that his televised journey for love isn’t over yet.
It’s all over for the first Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner, or is it? During the After the Final Rose, Bachelor Nation learned that Gerry’s television journey isn’t over just yet. And no, before anyone gets too excited, he’s not headed to Golden Bachelor in Paradise.
The first senior Bachelor had narrowed his selections to just two remaining women for Thursday night’s finale, Leslia Fhima and Theresa Nist. By the end of the night, he was accused of being a liar and on his way to his next chapter.
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Things took a turn for the worst when Gerry decided to pull the plug on his relationship with Leslie. When he told her, she called him out, saying, “So everything you told me the other night was a lie?” Gerry had professed his love for both women by this point.
“I’m heartbroken once again,” Leslie told him. “But now I have to do it in front of the whole world to see once again how broken I am, how no one chooses me. You didn’t choose me — once again.”
“And the other night, you made it sound like you chose me,” she continued. “You said things to me that made me think that this was going to be it. You led me down a path, and then you took a turn and left me there, and that’s how I feel.”
“I knew the minute I saw you,” Leslie noted. “We weren’t off. You were off.”
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Gerry pushed back against the liar narrative — after all, he’s not the first Bachelor(ette) to profess their undying love to multiple partners — saying instead that “things have evolved.”
“You’re both wonderful, but only one of you is right,” he said … but clever lines usually work better when you’re delivering good news.
During the After the Rose special, Leslie revealed that Gerry had left her feeling so certain he’d chosen her after their overnight that she had started picking out her wedding dress and writing her vows. She said she felt “blindsided” by his rejection.
Gerry expressed remorse for the hurt he’d caused Leslie by not choosing her, saying, “Had I known this is how much pain I would cause someone, I would have never taken the first step on this journey.”
The unexpected shift was apparently a result of their Fantasy Suite nights away from the cameras. During the After the Final Rose special, Theresa told host Jesse Palmer that Gerry wasn’t going to say what happened that night, but she would: “I knocked his boots off.”
That’s right, Gerry rejected Leslie and dropped down on one knee for Theresa — but not before giving her one of those patented clever lines.
“I came to the realization that you’re not the right person for me to live with,” Gerry told Theresa, pausing for dramatic effect. “You’re the person that I can’t live without.”
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The newly-engaged couple’s connection only grew stronger in the months since filming, with Theresa saying they talk on the phone for hours every day. “We have gotten into deeper and deeper conversations,” she said.
That’s when things took an unexpected twist, after Jesse shared with them that they were getting a trip to Italy to deepen their bond even further. As it turns out, this couple isn’t wasting any time.
“We can use that as our honeymoon trip because we are going to get married,” Gerry said of that trip to Italy. “We’re going to do it as quickly as we can because, at our age, we don’t have a lot of time to waste. As quickly as we can put together a wedding plan, we’re getting married.”
While most newly-minted engaged couples take their time these days before deciding to get married or — as more often happens — break things off entirely, Gerry and Theresa are not only rushing right ahead with their wedding plans, they’re bringing them to television.
Following on the heels of the first-ever Golden Bachelor comes The Golden Wedding, slated for Thursday, January 4 on ABC. The new special follows the couple through the planning stages and all the way down the aisle.
