Shots Fired: Theresa Nist Says Gerry Turner Should Have 'Called Off the Wedding' in Savage Message

Theresa Nist is finally breaking her silence after Gerry Turner made some explosive claims in his new memoir.

On Tuesday, November 4, the 72-year-old addressed what she called major inaccuracies in Turner’s book Golden Years: What I’ve Learned From Love, Loss, and Reality TV.

“Not one of the stories that I have read is the way it happened,” Nist declared.

“You did me no favors by marrying a woman that you did not want to marry,” she said, directing her comments at her ex-husband. “You should not. You should have called off the wedding. No matter that we were on TV, that didn't matter. This was our lives. You should have stopped it.”

Nist also mentioned that she would have understood if Turner had chosen runner-up Leslie Fhima instead.

“If you really wanted to be with Leslie, I would have applauded it,” she admitted. “I would have supported you. I would have been so happy.”

The pair famously tied the knot in a live ABC special for The Golden Bachelor in January 2024, watched by over 5 million viewers, but the fairytale quickly fell apart.

In his memoir, Turner claimed that just 48 hours after saying “I do,” they went back to their respective homes.

“In what had become standard operating procedure for us, we made a huge declaration of love and commitment and then went our separate ways,” he wrote. “She flew home to New Jersey while I returned to Indiana.”

He added that days later, he “drove fourteen hours to Shrewsbury” to visit her.

“I was married to the lady; I thought I should at least see where she lived! I feared that if I was not proactive and did not make the trip a top priority, inertia would set in,” Turner wrote.

Turner went on to say he was “surprised by the size of Theresa’s one-story house” and felt like “a trespasser in her home, like I didn’t belong.”

He even claimed they didn’t share a bed that first night.

“My first night at her house, she took out sheets and pillows before telling me, ‘Tomorrow’s a big workday. I need a good night’s sleep. Do you mind sleeping on the sofa?’” he recalled. “‘Yeah, no problem’ were the words that came out of my mouth, but I was really thinking, ‘Why? We’re married!’”

But Nist fired back, saying that version of events couldn’t be further from the truth.

“We slept together the first night,” she said, explaining that she told him the next morning she didn’t sleep well in her full-size bed. “He said, ‘Oh, I can sleep on the couch if you want me to.’ He offered to sleep on the couch. I did not ask him to sleep on the couch.”

She added, “And I said, ‘Oh, Gerry, would you?’ I said, ‘I would appreciate it so much.’ Because I knew I was never going to get another bit of sleep the whole time he was there.”

According to Nist, she immediately ordered a king-size mattress and even remodeled the primary bedroom with her daughter’s help.

“I even sent him photos of our progress, like, ‘We're almost done. Look at this. We put it together in a day and it's beautiful,’” she said. “He never came back. And he doubted it, and he said, ‘Yeah, but did you put the window coverings up?’”

The couple announced their divorce in April 2024 during a joint appearance on Good Morning America. Turner told host Juju Chang, “We’ve kind of come to the conclusion mutually that it’s probably time for us to dissolve our marriage.”

Now, reading Golden Years has left Nist “extremely upset.”

She said she never planned to speak publicly about their relationship again, but felt she had no choice after seeing his version of events.