Golden Bachelor Reveals First Wife Hid Disease Proof Before Sudden Death

Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner has described the traumatizing moment he realized his late wife Toni could have been saved.

In his new book, Golden Years: What I’ve Learned from Love, Loss and Reality TV, the reality star, 74, writes about discovering that Toni – who died of a bacterial infection in 2017 at age 64 – had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes but kept the diagnosis and treatment a secret from him and their two daughters.

After she passed away, Turner ‘started to go through’ Toni’s things and what he found shocked him.

‘Tucked away in the back of a bathroom drawer, in a clear sign that she didn’t want anybody to uncover what was in there, I found evidence that she had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes,’ Turner revealed.

‘There was literature, prescriptions, a blood glucose meter, and other supplies — all apparently untouched and unused.

‘She’d never mentioned this big diagnosis to me or her daughters, and, as far as I could tell, she’d never followed through with treatment,’ he added.

The ‘painful’ discovery led Turner to imagine what would have happened had she told anyone about her condition.

‘Untreated or unmanaged diabetes stresses the body, particularly the kidneys,’ he noted.

‘Had Toni had the means to live longer, but been undone in the end by the belief that any kind of whining was frivolous? Had I somehow contributed to this mentality? Why hadn’t she felt comfortable confiding in me about something as important as having diabetes?

‘The loss of any loved one is sad,’ he continued. ‘But to think it might have been possible, no matter how remotely, for her to have lived longer or still be alive today, is even more painful.’

Turner met Toni in high school and they became sweethearts after he asked her to a dance at the YMCA.

They wed in 1972, welcomed daughters Jenny and Angie, and remained married until her death in the summer of 2017, just weeks after they bought their retirement dream home on a lake in Indiana.

Clearly, the grandfather of two is reeling that Toni ‘didn’t feel safe enough to tell anyone the truth of what was happening with her.’

‘She’d worked her whole life, getting to that spot where she deserved her time in retirement and her time of fun, and she got cheated out of it. That was the thing that always bothered me,’ Turner previously told People.

In 2023, the retired restaurateur went on to become ABC’s first Golden Bachelor looking for love.

Turner and his chosen, Theresa Nist – a financial services professional based in New Jersey – tied the knot in January 2024 in lavish televised ceremony officiated by Susan Noles, a fellow contestant from The Golden Bachelor and a fan favorite.

But the couple announced their split after just three months of marriage, after Turner was diagnosed with a slow-growing, incurable bone marrow cancer, Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia.

‘I think it’s time, also because it probably will clear up a lot of mystery around what happened back in February, March and April,’ he told People.

‘As Theresa and I were trying very hard to find our lifestyle and where we were going to live and how we were going to make our life work, I was unfortunately diagnosed with cancer.

‘Unfortunately, there’s no cure for it. So that weighs heavily in every decision I make. It was like 10 tons of concrete were just dropped on me. And I was a bit in denial for a while, I didn’t want to admit to it.’

According to the Mayo Clinic, Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia is a type of cancer that begins in the white blood cells. It is considered a type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Though the disease can occur at any age, it most often occurs in adults 70 and older.

The 5-year survival rate for people with WM is about 78 per cent, and the 10-year survival rate is about 64 per cent, per the American Cancer Society.

Turner said Nist was ‘understandably awestruck’ when he shared the devastating news.

His diagnosis played a factor in their decision to split, complicated by the fact that he lives in Indiana while Nist resides in New Jersey.

‘I wanted my life to continue on as normal as possible, and that led me to believing that as normal as possible more meant spending time with my family, my two daughters, my two son-in-laws, my granddaughters. And the importance of finding the way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority,’ Turner explained to People.

Nist has a son, daughter, and six grandsons.

Turner and Nist initially announced news of their split on Good Morning America in April.

‘Theresa and I have had a number of heart-to-heart conversations, and we’ve looked closely at our situation, our living situation, so forth and – and we’ve kind of come to the conclusion mutually that it’s probably time for us to – dissolve our marriage,’ Turner told host Juju Chang.

He added, ‘The thing that strikes me the most in our conversations, it’s been how dedicated both of us are to our families.’

On an episode of the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast in December 2024, Turner shared an update on his cancer.

‘I feel great,’ he told hosts Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt.

‘Until I have any symptoms, there’s no treatment. So, I go frequently for blood tests. I’m on, like, a six-month schedule now, and I feel optimistic because the doctor has said, “Well, when you turn 75, we’re going to have to go three-month increments.” So, it’s telling me that at least he expects me to live another couple of years to get to that. But the bottom line is I feel really good.’

Turner recently married retired teacher Lana Sutton after announcing their engagement in October.