After years of teasing a potential “Bachelor for seniors,” the primetime dating franchise has finally announced a leading man.
Gerry Turner, a 71-year-old grandpa from Indiana, will be the first-ever senior lead of ABC’s The Golden Bachelor – and by the sounds of things, he’s more than ready to step into some reality television shoes.
Turner, whose first name is pronounced “Gary,” is described by the network as a “charming 71-year-old patriarch,” and proves you’re never too old to find love.
According to his bio, Turner is a retired restaurateur who married his high school sweetheart, Toni, in 1974. Sadly, she died in 2017 after a sudden illness.
“I have her picture on a dresser in my closet…. For a while, it was like I was having a hard time figuring out if she would be OK (with me moving on),” he told Good Morning America Monday. “But we always told each other, when one of us goes we’d want the other one to be happy. She’s up there rooting (for me).”
As the show’s leading man, Turner will hand out roses to a group of older women as he hopes to find love to last through the sunset years of his life.
Turner told GMA that his daughters encouraged him to sign up for the show and that he’s always lived life by his motto: “Don’t give up – there’s always possibilities.”
He also said he was looking for an energetic partner with whom he can enjoy activities like pickleball and golf.
And while looks aren’t everything, especially when it comes to finding love, fans of the show seemed impressed with the clean-cut romantic.
ABC has been teasing the possibility of a seniors-only franchise of The Bachelor for more than three years. In 2020 it began soliciting applications from “seniors looking for love,” but it was only this May that it was announced the series would finally come to fruition.
The Golden Bachelor will begin airing this fall on ABC.