Gerry Turner, the reality TV star known for his tumultuous turn as the first “Golden Bachelor,” announced on Wednesday that he had been diagnosed with a form of blood cancer.
Mr. Turner, 73, said in an interview with People that he had been diagnosed earlier this year with Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia, a slow-growing lymphoma that affects blood cells and bone marrow.
“It was like 10 tons of concrete were just dropped on me,” Mr. Turner said of the diagnosis in the interview. “And I was a bit in denial for a while, I didn’t want to admit to it.”
Mr. Turner did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The disease is incurable but can sometimes be managed with treatments, including chemotherapy, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Mr. Turner said he was working with a hematology-oncology group in Fort Wayne, Ind., but did not specify what type of treatment he was receiving.
Mr. Turner stood out as a septuagenarian reality TV star as the lead of “The Golden Bachelor,” a spinoff of ABC’s long-running dating show with an older cast that began airing last year. Mr. Turner won fans with his optimistic message about finding love late in life — a rarity on dating shows.
“People my age still fall in love,” he told The New York Times last year, before the show’s premiere. “People my age still have hope, and they still have vigorous lives.”
Mr. Turner, a retiree from Indiana, had been married for 43 years to his high school sweetheart, Toni, who died in 2017 after a short illness. On the show, he dated 22 women and clicked with Theresa Nist, a financial services professional from New Jersey who was 70 at the time. They split milkshakes and bonded over their shared experience of losing a spouse.
The couple wed in a swirl of palm trees and television cameras at a ceremony in January that was aired live on ABC. Three months later, in April, they said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that they were divorcing. The announcement prompted an outcry from fans who had hoped that “The Golden Bachelor” might offer a less artificial version of the reality dating show.
Mr. Turner told People that his diagnosis had played a role in their divorce. “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,” he said in the interview. “And the importance of finding the way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority.”
Mr. Turner said he learned about the cancer because of a shoulder injury he had sustained three years ago while teaching a pickleball class. An orthopedic surgeon told him that beyond the shoulder injury, he had “unusual blood markers.”
The diagnosis of Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia came in March. The American Cancer Society describes the disease as a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in which abnormal cells grow in the bone marrow, crowding out red and white blood cells.
Although the disease’s progression can vary based on a patient’s age and response to therapy, the five-year survival rate of people with it is about 78 percent, according to data from a National Cancer Institute database.
“I’m going to pack as much fun as I possibly can into my life and enjoy every moment,” he told People. “And when I’m gone, I’m gone, but I’m not going to have regrets.”
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