Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner exposes identity of | TV Shows

First-ever Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner has revealed the identity of his new girlfriend almost a year after divorcing winner Theresa Nist.

More than a year after the inaugural season of the ABC spin-off premiered and almost a year after Gerry and Nist finalized their divorce, the Bachelor Nation alum revealed he is in a new relationship.

Turner, 73, who announced in early December that he has Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia, a slow-growing bone marrow cancer that has no cure, exposed his new love, Lana, met when she slid into his DMs.

He told TMZ on Thursday, April 24, that while he ignored her first message, her second attempt got his attention when she shared that she grew up in an Indiana town 20 minutes from him.

Gerry took Lana to a restaurant in March for their first date, and they have since continued their romance, including meeting each other’s kids — and her parents.

While they had a whirlwind romance, Gerry is adamant about taking his new relationship one step at a time. However, the pair has been incorporating family into the mix.

“I think the fun part there is she has daughters that I really relate to, and she relates well to my daughters,” Gerry — who has daughters Jenny, 50, and Angie, 42, with his late wife Toni Turner—added. “So we’ve been around each other briefly. It’s been fun. It’s been a very enjoyable encounter.”

Gerry also shared that his new girlfriend is inspiring him to be more spontaneous, including “a lot of travel.”

He explained, “The person I’m dating will say, ‘Do you want to go do…’ and before she gets out the rest of the sentence I will say, ‘Yes.’”

Turner added that he felt a strong connection with his partner “almost the first time I saw her.”

“It was the look that she gave me,” he explained. “All of a sudden, I was consumed by this look and I had this actual physical feeling and I pushed it off. I go, ‘That was silly, that’s ridiculous.’”

However, he knows that feeling won’t go away, because, he explained, “With every encounter that feeling has instantly come back with her look and it’s like, ‘Damn, this is pretty awesome.’”

Now it’s clear why the former leading man, who is reportedly “over” the “denial phase” of his cancer diagnosis, declined an offer to return to the Bachelor Nation franchise alongside other single seniors in the upcoming 10th season of Bachelor in Paradise.