First Look at ‘The Golden Bachelor’: ‘I Believe I’ll Find My Person’
72-year-old Gerry Turner teared up while talking about his late wife in a preview for the upcoming show
Good news, ladies: It looks like The Golden Bachelor star Gerry Turner, 72, has a good sense of humor.
In the first teaser trailer for the series coming to ABC in September, Turner reveals what he’s looking for in a date.
“Best case scenario is I found out that Helen Mirren is on the market, and she’s really happy to be on The Golden Bachelor,” joked Turner, who pronounces his first name like “Gary.” (Fun fact: Helen Mirren appeared on the December/January cover of AARP The Magazine.)
Turner, who likes four-wheeling and pickleball, is starring as the show’s first senior Bachelor.
“I hope at the end of it, I find the person that I’ll spend the rest of my life with that will complete my family. I want to fall in love,” Turner said. “The person who can lay down beside you at night and doesn’t have to say anything, and you feel it — that’s love. That’s what I want, and I know that person’s out there.”
And this wouldn’t be his first time finding that love. The Indiana native shared in the preview that he married his high school sweetheart, and they spent 43 years together before she died on July 15, 2017, just over a month after retiring and closing on their dream house.
In the tearjerker trailer, Turner shares that the love of his two daughters and granddaughters got him through the rough patches following the loss of his wife, but admits that even six years after her death, “No one’s ever going to replace Toni.”
“What I looked for at the age of 70 is different than what I looked for when I was in high school and college,” Turner told The Bachelorette host Jesse Palmer in front of a live studio audience during Monday’s “Men Tell All” recap show . “I believe I’ll find my person — the new person that will make me whole again, and I think we’ll knit a wonderful relationship. But I don’t think it’ll look like the relationship that I had with Toni. I don’t think it would be right to do it that way.”
During his interview segment on the recap show, the social-media-challenged Turner seemed amused by all the enthusiasm and hype viewers have for his upcoming season.
“What I’m most looking for that first night is for one of those women, or several of those women, to just have that look in their eyes, like ‘Oh gosh. OK, I found my own GrandZaddy,’ ” he joked, after Palmer told him he had been trending on social media under that hashtag.
Turner said he’s been watching the current season of The Bachelorette and aspires to be like the men featured on the show — “a bunch of cool guys.” But the members of the younger cohort said Turner’s the one they looked up to.
“Just trust your gut because you had a relationship that lasted so long,” said 24-year-old Brayden Bowers, who exited the dating show after a contentious conversation with Charity Lawson, the current Bachelorette. “That’s what we all aspire for. I say to stay true to yourself because you’ve got it.”
And Turner also had advice for those hoping for a long-lasting marriage.
“Look at your spouse every day and tell them you love them. The day comes too soon for one of you, that you can’t do that. I would give anything to be able to do that one more time,” Turner said. “Tell them that you love them every day. Give them that hug.”
