Note: The following story contains spoilers from “The Golden Bachelor” “Women Tell All” episode.
With an engagement just around the corner on “The Golden Bachelor,” Gerry Turner made the heartbreaking decision to send home Faith Martin as he narrowed down his final two women — a decision that left the frontrunner “shattered.”
“It’s so hard for me to go back to that night because, leaving, I was in my walls-up mode, feeling like, ‘If I can just get home, I can cry at home,’” Martin told TheWrap. “I would say it hit me the following day when a producer called and said, ‘How are you?’ and then it was like two hours on the phone with Eric crying my eyes out.”
After Turner met Martin’s siblings, children and grandchildren earlier in the week during her hometown date, not receiving Turner’s final two roses was “devastating” for Martin.
“Even though you never know how things are going to go, it was still very unexpected in a lot of ways,” Martin said. “I certainly had to process through a gamut of emotions.”
After seeing Martin and Turner exchange “I love you’s” earlier that week, Martin’s family was similarly shocked by her elimination.
“I have the most amazing family, but I’m not going to lie, my kids felt pretty devastated,” she recalled. “They saw me happy for the first time in a very long time, and they were so excited for me.”
Despite her family feeling like they had the “rug pulled out” from under them, Martin found comfort in leaning on all of the positive things that came out of the experience.
“Our family does believe things are always how they’re meant to be,” she said. “I know that the lessons that I learned, the things that I discovered and the relationships that I created are worth it. I have no regrets.”
Since leaving the ABC reality dating show, Martin said she’s been looking at love and this chapter of her life in a different, “better light,” noting “I feel good about life going forward.”
“I aim to stay present, keep my walls down and be open to love,” Martin said. “[‘The Golden Bachelor’] has just given me a new perspective — I think it’s so refreshing to just be around so many caring people that believe in love. It’s really a neat thing.”
“The Golden Bachelor” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
