Gerry Turner is good, not perfect, just like fans.
It’s impossible to please hyper-critical Golden Bachelor fans. They built Gerry Turner up, then tore him down. A Marriage and Family Therapist shows another way to look at it. Photo: Heavy/ABC
What a fickle audience Bachelor Nation can be. No sooner had American reality show fans embraced 72-year-old Gerry Turner as the breath of fresh air women needed to see on ABC’s hugely popular Golden Bachelor, which features older singles in the 60s to 70s range, they tore him down. Gerry’s stock dropped faster than Enron’s in 2001 after the season finale and a Nov 29 gotcha piece by Suzanne O’Malley and Barbara Lippert in the Hollywood Reporter, where they pointed out several discrepancies in the story Gerry told about himself during the show, and ABC’s producers had created about him. In addition, Golden Bachelor fans didn’t appreciate Gerry telling more than one woman he loved her, even though everyone knows the format is that he begins with 22 women, narrows the numbers down until he is left with two, and feelings often do develop. Heaven forbid, gracious and gentlemanly Gerry is an imperfect and flawed man. As a therapist and former newspaper reporter, I have a few things to say about Gerry, the Hollywood Reporter article, and how quickly Bachelor fans turned on the man.
Where Golden Bachelor fans got it wrong:
1. Gerry insinuated he hadn’t seriously dated anyone. He said on Entertainment Tonight, “I mean, I haven’t dated in 45 years.” Apparently, on the show, he said he hadn’t kissed in six years. Then Hollywood Reporter dragged out an old girlfriend who said she had dated Gerry starting about a month after his wife of 43 years, Toni, passed away. The woman, who remained anonymous in the piece, said she dated Gerry for almost three years, living with him for almost two. He is also known to have dated at least a couple of other women since his late wife passed away six years ago.
Therapist/journalist explanation: When I was a journalist, anonymous sources weren’t acceptable or used. If you’re going to stand up and trash someone, you need to have the guts to attach your name to it or the information you tell should be viewed highly suspiciously and never printed. It is unethical and unprofessional for the Hollywood Reporter to give the woman the cover of anonymity in a negative hit piece, especially when not offering Gerry the chance to defend himself. As a therapist and human…
Becky Whetstone is an Arkansas native and has a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. She is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in Texas and Arkansas. 
