The Golden Bachelor Fans Are Comparing Gerry Turner To A Former Bachelor After Big Hometown Date Snafu

Spoiler alert! This story talks about the Hometown Dates on The Golden Bachelor, which aired November 2.

Gerry Turner visited three different hometowns this week to meet the families of his final three women — Theresa Nist, Faith Martin and Leslie Fhima — on The Golden Bachelor. As if this show wasn’t already emotional enough, involving children and grandchildren just about did me in, and Gerry too, it seemed. In fact, the 72-year-old from Indiana caved to the pressure of the families and made a classic snafu that gave Bachelor Nation flashbacks of former Bachelor Ben Higgins, as he told more than one woman that he was in love with them.

Some of us were able to see this coming. For one, Gerry Turner has worn his heart on his sleeve all season, so it’s not hard to see how once he met the families of the Season 1 contestants that his feelings grew for all three. Also, he pretty much admitted that he’d dropped some inauthentic love bombs when being interviewed post-filming. That didn’t make it any easier to watch, though, as he told Faith Martin — in front of her family no less — and Leslie Fhima that he was in love with them. Didn’t anyone tell Gerry the first rule of Bachelor Nation, one fan wondered? 

Gerry Turner was able to dodge the question of whether or not he was in love well enough on Theresa Nist’s hometown in New Jersey, but trouble started brewing once he got to Washington for Faith Martin’s date, and then he had no issues practically shouting his love from the rooftops to Leslie Fhima in Minneapolis. Apparently the widower did not prepare for his journey by watching Ben Higgins’ journey on The Bachelor Season 20, as one fan wrote: 

Bachelor Nation was feeling the deja vu, as Ben Higgins famously dropped the L word to both eventual winner Lauren Bushnell and Bachelorette-to-be JoJo Fletcher during Fantasy Suites. This viewer seemed to think we’d seen this movie before, posting … 

However, whereas some leads have been villainized in the past for professing their love for more than one finalist — does Clayton Echard’s Rose Ceremony From Hell ring a bell? — many fans seemed willing to give Gerry Turner a pass, because it all seemed so very genuine. As one X user pointed out: 

Unfortunately we didn’t get to see how the rose ceremony ended. After Gerry Turner gave the first rose to Leslie Fhima, he broke down before he was able to hand out the final rose, stepping away and saying he felt like he was going to throw up. The episode ended on a cliffhanger. 

Will it be Theresa Nist or Faith Martin joining Leslie Fhima in Gerry Turner’s final two for Fantasy Suite dates? Tune in next week to find out and witness the first Golden version of the “Women Tell All,” when The Golden Bachelor returns at 8 p.m. Thursday, November 9, on ABC.