Gerry Turner has spoken up about his time on The Bachelor and the times he was hesitant to participate.
The 72-year-old is presently looking for love on ABC’s Golden Bachelor and is the first senior person to headline the spin-off.
The retired restaurateur revealed the adjustment he faced when delving into the dating series ahead of tonight’s episode, which has been postponed to 8.22pm ET on ABC owing to President Joe Biden’s speech.
In a forthright new interview, he admitted that, despite having to ‘give up a lot of personal liberties’ for the challenge, he wishes he had thrown himself into the experience sooner rather than overthinking it.
‘Don’t wait a few days, don’t wait a week. Do it tonight,’ he encouraged. ‘Do it right now and life will be easier.’
Lifting the lid on how he went about interacting with the singletons, Gerry continued to Us Weekly: ‘It wasn’t so much a specific question that I was looking to get answered, but more a reaction from them – a look in their eye, the feeling of connection and warmth.
‘There was what I would consider an insignificant amount of drama. Nothing like what is seen in some of the other seasons with the Bachelor and The Bachelorette. I think, really, the people that were involved were just simply speaking a different language.’
Gerry was just named the first Golden Bachelor, and he went to the ABC spin-off when his wife died in 2017.
His daughters supported his choice to apply for the dating programme and offered advise, but he ignored all of them.
The widower, on the other hand, has had to say more than a few sad goodbyes.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he said that there is a ‘really awful scenario’ and one point near the end.
‘I’m down to two people and realize that one of those two has to go home,’ he said. ‘When you’re down to the last two people over that amount of time and that much investment, you really have strong feelings for them even though you know they’re not the right person. They are so close to it.
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‘You’re connected so deeply and then you realize they have to leave. Oh my God, it was an incredibly bad situation.’
‘You have to be genuine but you get in a moment when it’s almost as if you fall in love with the concept of being in love.
‘And it’s like, yeah, I want to be there. And the excitement and the glamour of a moment and all the energy, all of a sudden you feel it. And then the next day, when you sort it out, you go, “Oh geez, that wasn’t the authentic feeling that I was looking for.”’
The Golden Bachelor airs on ABC on Thursdays.
