Fickle Golden Bachelor Fans Turn on Gerry Turner.
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.