‘Golden Bachelor’ Gerry Turner Started Dating Ex-Girlfriend 3 Months After His Wife Died, Dumped Her For Gaining Weight

The first Golden Bachelor star, Gerry Turner, 72, has caused a stir after his ex-girlfriend shared horror stories from their relationship.

Turner had said on the show that he hadn’t been on a date in years after the death of his wife, Toni, in July 2017. The two were married for 43 years.

However, The Hollywood Reporter found that another woman, known as Caroline to protect her identity, dated Turner just two months after Toni’s death. Turner allegedly met Caroline at a mental health center they worked at together.

Caroline, who is 14 years younger than Turner, said that the two of them dated for ten months, and lived together at his $637,000 lake house in Indiana for a year and nine months.

Caroline said that Turner called her in August of 2017 — just a month after Toni’s death — and asked her to help him donate some of Toni’s clothes to charity. He took her to dinner afterward to thank her.

Caroline said, “The idea that I’d go out with a recent widower just mortifies me… I just really didn’t see it. Until I went back and looked at my text messages, I never realized Gerry’s texts had turned hot and heavy so relatively soon.”

Turner had texted her: “I got LUCKY when you first said you would go to dinner with me two weeks ago. I mean how often does an old geezer get the beautiful girl?”

The two began to date three months after Toni’s death, and Caroline moved into Turner’s lake house in July 2018. The pair broke up in October 2019, in anticipation of Gerry’s high school reunion. 

Caroline said Turner had told her, “I’m not taking you to the reunion looking like that,” and gestured to her body – she had gained ten pounds due to stress. Turner dumped her and told her to be out of the house by January 2020.

Caroline said that she experienced an injury on the stairs as she packed her bags, and as a consequence had to visit the emergency room. Turner was not present at the incident and allegedly accused her of intentionally failing to prolong her stay in the house.

Furthermore, he insisted that Caroline find accommodation at a hotel for her two-week notice period at work, and didn’t permit her to remain in the house.

Caroline’s claims were backed up by documented text messages between her and Turner and accounts from friends she had confided in at the time.