'Golden Bachelor' Couple Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist Divorcing ...

Am I allowed to start an article with “Ha-ha-ha”? Because that’s what I said when I saw the headlines this morning about Gerry Turner, ABC’s first Golden Bachelor, and his beloved Theresa Nist divorcing just three months after their televised wedding. Hahaha!

The couple made the announcement in an interview with Good Morning America on Friday and blamed distance as the reason for their split. He lives in Indiana, she in New Jersey, they both have families in their respective states, they looked for houses to share but just couldn’t quite get it together, etc. There were assurances of their undying love and affection for one another and pleadings for the other Golden bachelors and bachelorettes out there to never give up hope on finding their happily ever after, all very wholesome.

Interviewer Juju Chang called it a “head-scratcher,” which made me LOL.

As for that little exposé about Turner published a day before the wedding—you know, the one where an ex of Turner’s basically said he’d ruined her life?—Nist insisted it had nothing to do with their breakup.

“Gerry had already discussed that with me. He had explained it before the report was ever released, so we were good with that. It didn’t play into it,” she said. Okay, ma’am, whatever you say.

And what does this mean for the future of Golden Bachelor and the Bachelor franchise at large? Probably nothing. While marriage has always been the goal of these shows, it’s rarely the result. Turns out even old people can’t fall in love in a matter of weeks. I remain unimpressed and unsurprised. When they do a queer and/or plus-sized (or, you know, regular sized) Bachelor/ette, and one person asks the other out on a date without cameras or something a little more reasonable at the end, call me.