‘Golden Bachelor’ star Teresa Nist says ex-Jerry Turner says their wedding should have been called off

Teresa Nist is responding to Jerry Turner’s recent claims about their relationship.

During an appearance on the Nov. 4 episode of the Dear Shandy podcast, Nist, 72, responded to the former Golden Bachelor’s new novel, The Golden Years: What I Learned from Love, Loss, and Reality TV, in which he candidly opened up about the breakup of his short-lived marriage. Turner, 74, makes several claims about Nist throughout the book, but said, “None of the stories I read actually happened.”

“You did me no favors by marrying a woman I didn’t want to marry,” she said to her ex-husband. “It should have been called off. The wedding should have been called off. It didn’t matter if we were on TV. This was our life. It should have been called off.”

“If he really wanted to be with Leslie, I would have praised it,” Nist continued, noting that Turner wrote that he struggled to choose between her and runner-up Leslie Fima. “I would have supported you. I would have been very happy.”

Among the many incidents Turner mentions in her memoir is one that occurred during her first visit to Nist’s home in New Jersey just five days after their wedding, during which she claimed that she asked him to sleep on her couch and “ignored any opportunity for intimacy.” But Nist disputed this recollection, saying her bed simply wasn’t big enough for them.

“We slept together the first night,” she said, and claimed that when Turner asked the next morning, she told him that neither of them slept well in the full-size bed. “He said, ‘Oh, you can sleep on the couch if you want.'” He offered to sleep on the couch. I didn’t ask him to sleep on the couch. So I said, “Oh, Jerry, can you do it?” I said, “Thank you.” I knew I wouldn’t get any more sleep while he was there. ”

Nist went on to say that she immediately ordered a king-sized mattress and, with the help of her daughter, renovated the master bedroom.

“I sent him pictures of our progress and said, ‘It’s almost finished. Look at this. We put it together in one day, it’s so beautiful,'” she said. “He never came back, and he doubted it and said, ‘Yeah, but did you cover the window?'”

Much of their relationship, which began in August 2023 when they met on “The Golden Bachelor” and ended in April 2024 when they filed for divorce three months after marriage, was unhealthy, Nist said.

She said Ms. Nist was “very upset” after reading “The Golden Years” and felt she had no choice but to address Mr. Nist’s accusations, even though she never intended to speak about their relationship again.

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“I didn’t want to say this, I just felt forced,” she admitted, later adding: “It was really just, if you don’t have anything to say, don’t say anything. I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to hurt any other human being. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him, and I didn’t want to make it bad in case he wanted to find someone else.”

“But actually, the thing that annoyed me the most was his daughters,” she revealed. “I loved his daughters. I love them. We don’t talk much right now, but Jenny and Angie and his granddaughters Peyton and Charlie are really nice people, and I didn’t want them to talk bad about their father or grandfather, so I let them be. But now, I mean, he’s writing books and saying things, so now I can’t ignore that.”

Golden Years: What I’ve Learned from Love, Loss, and Reality TV by Jerry Turner is currently available for purchase everywhere.