‘Golden Bachelor’ Finale Shocks Audiences With Twists and Heartbreak

The Walt Disney Company

Gerry Turner, the first-ever Golden Bachelor, shocked fans during the show’s finale on Thursday night when he went off script and didn’t go through with the typical proposal process. Instead of letting both Leslie Fhima and Theresa Nist show up to the proposal day dressed to the nines, asking one of them to marry him while breaking up with the other, Gerry told Leslie the night before in her hotel room that he was going to choose Theresa. 

“It’s been difficult and I’ve kind of made a decision about how I want to go about this and I have fallen in love with Theresa, and that’s the direction I’m going to take,” Gerry told Leslie.

The conversation that followed was heartbreaking and dramatic, to say the least. “So everything you told me the other night was a lie?” Leslie asked the Golden Bachelor.

A devastated Leslie said she felt misled by Gerry after their overnight together. She confronted him in the moment, saying she knew something was off with him all day when she met his two daughters.

“The other night you made it sound like you chose me. 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,” Leslie explained through tears.

Gerry held her as she sobbed, the two of them sitting next to each other on a couch in her hotel suite, and tried to explain that he was sorry, expressing that he wished there was something else he could say or do to help her.

“Believe me, had I known this would be how much pain I would cause someone, I would’ve never taken the first step on this journey,” Gerry said to Leslie.

In this emotional moment, Leslie continued to tell Gerry that she thought his actions were “mind-boggling,” emphasizing how she felt deceived based on whatever private sentiments he shared with her during their overnight. He eventually let himself out and had his own breakdown outside of Leslie’s hotel room, telling host Jesse Palmer, “She’s a good person and I fucked her over… I hate myself and I hate everything right now.”

“I think the only time I’ve ever felt worse in my whole life is when my wife passed away,” Gerry added through tears.

Gerry and Leslie reunited for the first time on stage in The Golden Bachelor’s live show during the finale. After the two shared a long hug, Leslie told Gerry everything she wanted to say: Because she fell in love with his integrity and valued the words he said, she was especially blindsided when Gerry didn’t choose her.

“Everybody knows what you said on camera, but only you and I know what you said on the overnight, and I would never share that,” Leslie said. “But those words gave me one hundred percent certainty that I was your girl and we were going to get engaged, so much so that I left that morning knowing that you had a date with Theresa and I wasn’t jealous, I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t envious.”

Gerry apologized to Leslie, saying, “I’ll never forgive myself for the pain that I’ve caused along the way.” While she said she didn’t “accept” Gerry’s apology, Leslie said that she did understand it.

With his heartbreak and a tough decision behind him, Gerry proposed to Theresa on a platform decorated in florals in Costa Rica. Though he was walking into the proposal feeling lighter because his difficult conversation with Leslie was behind him, Theresa had no idea that she was the only woman left, even telling Jesse Palmer she was wondering how Leslie was feeling at that moment. 

When Theresa joined Gerry on the platform, she told him, “Gerry, I know how sometimes it feels like the whole world thinks that love is only for the young and quite honestly, at the age of 70 I was beginning to feel that myself… after Billy [her late husband] died, I was at the point where I thought, ‘I’m going to live the rest of my life alone,’ until I met you and I saw you smile and I thought, ‘Oh my God, what am I feeling here?’” 

After Theresa continued to share her feelings for Gerry, saying she believes the best is yet to come and he’s the most wonderful man in the world, Gerry finally told her that she’s the person he can’t live without. 

Gerry and Theresa also shared the stage during the live show, gushing about their relationship they’ve been keeping a secret from the public since the show stopped filming. The couple also announced they’re getting married sooner rather than later with an ABC wedding special airing on January 4, 2024.

When The Golden Bachelor first premiered, Gerry shared that he had been married to his high school sweetheart Toni for more than 40 years before she tragically died of an infection in 2017. The Golden Bachelor has been well-received by fans. The viewership data speaks volumes: more than 4 million people reportedly tuned into the show’s premiere when it aired and then after a week of streaming across platforms, the total number of viewers reached 9 million. With Gerry at the helm of this new era, the new iteration of the classic Bachelor show has even been celebrated and lauded for saving the longtime ABC franchise that critics say was growing stale. 

On Wednesday, just one day ahead of the show’s finale, The Hollywood Reporter published an exposé into Gerry’s personal and professional life. According to the report, there were several contradictions and inconsistencies in Gerry’s real life outside of the show compared to the narrative that’s been portrayed on The Golden Bachelor. An anonymous woman claimed she dated Gerry for nearly three years, even moving into his home in Indiana, and that they started dating one month after his wife died. She told The Hollywood Reporter their relationship ended because he didn’t want to take her to his high school reunion after she had gained some weight.

During The Golden Bachelor finale, ABC aired a casting call for viewers to submit themselves, their parents, or their grandmas and grandpas for a potential future season of The Golden Bachelor or even possibly The Golden Bachelorette. It seems that, for now, the Bachelorverse is more potent than it’s been in a long, long while.