The Golden Bachelor star Gerry Turner has opened up about his Fantasy Suites now that filming has wrapped and his journey to find the second love of his life is about to be televised on ABC.
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Gerry, 72, and the show's producers shed light on Gerry's journey with Entertainment Weekly as the season progressed, and they revealed how he enjoyed hometown dates as well as Fantasy Suites.
While production didn't want to give too much away, they confirmed Gerry had at least one overnight date.
"This is the first time we've ever heard someone say, 'I have to consider what my grandchildren will think' before they go into a Fantasy Suite," executive producer Bennett Graebner shared.
"I really love that Gerry and the women are open to that experience. But I don't know if I want to hear the term 'knockin' boots' again. I think I've heard it enough."
Gerry chimed in with an explanation for the "knockin' boots" reference.
"I guess what I was trying to do is avoid some of the cliche phrases about physical intimacy, and maybe I did just the opposite," Gerry explained with a laugh.
But Gerry apparently didn't view his off-camera time with one or more special women as an opportunity to explore physical intimacy.
"The Fantasy Suites were about connecting intellectually and emotionally, and not about connecting physically," Gerry clarified.
"I guess with some age and wisdom you realize that the most important and lasting things that you're looking for in a relationship come from areas other than physical intimacy."
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Gerry suggested he and the ladies -- ranging in age from 60 through 75 -- have come to understand the "difference between love and lust," which may still come as a struggle to The Bachelor and The Bachelorette stars in their twenties or thirties.
"It's also probably the difference between 30 and 70," The Golden Bachelor star pointed out.
Not only did Gerry's bachelorettes approach the overnight dates with wisdom and maturity, but another executive producer, Jason Ehrlich, told EW that the bachelorettes handled rejection very well week to week.
After all, Gerry was hoping to get a second chance at love with only one woman out of his 22 beautiful bachelorettes.
"These women have a lot more life experience to know that they're strong enough to handle this," Jason shared.
"When they leave the mansion, they are certainly disappointed, they are certainly bummed. But they aren't devastated in any way. There is this feeling that, 'I'm glad that I put myself out there, and I will continue to put myself out there for the next adventure.'"
Before Gerry even embarked on his Fantasy Suites, he told Entertainment Tonight how he assumed the overnight dates were going to "look quite different" than on a typical The Bachelor or The Bachelorette season.
"[It makes] my daughters a lot more nervous than me," he quipped.
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Gerry signed up to be The Golden Bachelor well after losing his high school sweetheart and late wife, Toni Turner, to complications from a bacterial infection in 2017.
The pair had been married for 43 years and welcomed two daughters, Angie and Jenny, together. Gerry also has two granddaughters, Charlee and Payton, and lives on a beautiful lake in Indiana.
While the girls were very supportive of their father finding love on television, they apparently don't want to watch him make out with bachelorettes on the show.
"They said, 'Absolutely none of that.' They said, 'Don't do it,'" Gerry playfully recalled, although he planned to ignore "that part of [their] advice."
The Golden Bachelor continued, "They said, 'Pick your moments.' They said, 'Enjoy every minute you can.' They are very much fans of the show. They got me started watching it. They were the ones that motivated me to respond early on to the casting call."
Gerry said he was hoping to find his forever love because he believes "people are designed to live with someone."
"Living alone, it's obviously lonely," he elaborated, "but I also think that we're not our best selves when we're not with the right person. Consequently, I had kind of stalled."
And even if Gerry wasn't their "right person," many of the bachelorettes seemed to enjoy their experience on the ABC reality dating series as a whole.
April Kirkwood, a 65-year-old therapist from Florida, for example, told EW, "One thing I realized from this show, I am open to falling in love. Whether it's with him or someone else, I am lonely, and I am interested in having someone to share that space with. I think this is a gift from the universe."
Click here to read spoilers on Gerry's The Golden Bachelor season and how it ended.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
