“The Golden Bachelor” alum Faith Martin has shared her best wishes to Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist following news of the pair’s impending divorce.
“I wish them both all the happiness in the world, and I’m sure this was a traumatic thing to go through for both of them, so my heart goes out to them,” the second runner-up told People on Friday. “I’m sure everything will really be OK in the long run, and someday they’ll look back and just smile, hopefully.”
Since Turner and Nist only just tied the knot three months ago during ABC’s live “Golden Wedding” broadcast, Martin noted the public breakup is “a very difficult situation.”
“I think it is important to realize that on a show like this, it’s so important to be so transparent and so much yourself filled with honesty and truth and ask those right questions,” Martin said. “That’s why it’s such a serious thing. You got to ask the right questions to see if things could really, really work, and perhaps they just did not have enough time for that.”
Nist and Martin lived together in the “Bachelor” mansion and dated Turner alongside one another on the ABC reality dating show, which premiered in September 2023. Additionally, Martin, Nist and runner-up Leslie Fhima all partook in hometown dates with the leading man.
Martin was sent home following her hometown date, which left her “shattered” and her kids, whom Turner had just met, “devastated,” the fan-favorite told TheWrap in the fall.
“Even though you never know how things are going to go, it was still very unexpected in a lot of ways,” she said at the time. “I certainly had to process through a gamut of emotions.”
Turner then proposed to Nist during the finale of “The Golden Bachelor,” which aired on Nov. 30, 2023. At the end of the final episode, series host Jesse Palmer announced that Turner and Nist would be getting married in a live wedding special, which aired Jan. 4. Both Martin and Fhima joined in the wedding festivities alongside several other women from the “Golden Bachelor,” including officiant Susan Noles, golden carpet correspondent Kathy Swarts, and guests Martin, Joan Vassos and Sandra Mason.
Turner and Nist announced their breakup on Friday on “Good Morning America.”
“We’ve looked closely at our situation, our living situation and so forth, and we’ve kind of come to the conclusion mutually that it’s probably time for us to dissolve our marriage,” Turner admitted.
A spin-off entitled “The Golden Bachelorette” is currently slated for ABC’s fall lineup.
