The Golden Bachelor alum Gerry Turner and his new fiancee Lana Sutton have responded to criticism their engagement was too soon after divorce.

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Gerry met Lana, a retired Indiana teacher, after divorcing his The Golden Bachelor winner, Theresa Nist, whom he married in January 2024. Gerry and Theresa's divorce was finalized in June 2024.

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Gerry said he began dating Lana in March and then their relationship moved quickly. He announced their engagement in on October 3.

"I don't want to sound disrespectful at all, but I don't think of myself as being divorced," Gerry told Kathy Swarts and Susan Noles during the Tuesday, October 28 episode of the "Bachelor Happy Hour: Golden Hour" podcast.

"What marriage?!" Susan quipped, referring to how Gerry and Theresa were only married for three short months before announcing their split.

"It was such a short time," Gerry continued, "and it was in an artificial environment."

Gerry, however, said he occasionally "has to stop" and remind himself that he did, in fact, have a marriage that didn't work out.

(Before getting engaged to Theresa on The Golden Bachelor's November 2023 finale, Gerry's first wife, Toni Turner, died in June 2017 after a sudden bacterial infection).

"I have to say, 'Yeah, you know what? I am divorced.' It's not like I'm that guy that was married for 43 years and then did nothing. I am divorced," Gerry acknowledged.

"But the comment of it being 'too soon' has never come to me. That question has not been asked."

Gerry added, "There are some things that are timeless, and you know, I think one of them is when you meet the right person, you don't even think about where it fits on the timeline."

Gerry therefore believes that "when it's right, it's right."

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Lana, for her part, was divorced for a little over a year before she sent Gerry a DM on Facebook and jumpstarted their relationship.

"My oldest daughter lives closest to me, so she has seen it from the get-go, and my son-in-law Noah, as well," Lana shared.

"And so when we started talking, they were like, 'Mom, how serious is it? Are you serious with him?' And I'm like, 'Yeah, it's serious, guys. We've pretty much fallen in love.' And she goes, 'I knew it! I could just see it.'"

Lana said her daughter knew right from the start that she and Gerry were a good match.

According to Lana, her daughter and Noah said, "When you meet somebody and you have those feelings, you just know."

Lana added, "And so for them, they were like, 'It's not too soon. It's not too fast because you just can tell when you've met the right person.'"

Lana also said joining Bachelor Nation has been "great" and "a lot of fun."

In terms of their wedding, Lana and Gerry are apparently in no rush to tie the knot.

"We haven't really talked wedding plans yet. I think we're just sort of basking in our engagement and working out some details as far as [selling] his [Indiana lake] house, and so we'll think about it," Lana explained.

But she assured Kathy and Susan that the planning "will come" and both women will be invited to the wedding.

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Kathy and Susan both competed for Gerry's heart on Season 1 of The Golden Bachelor.

The ladies attended Gerry and Theresa's wedding when it aired live January 4, 2024 on ABC.

Gerry wrote about the demise of his relationship with Theresa in his new book Golden Years: What I've Learned from Love, Loss, and Reality TV, which hits shelves on November 4.

Gerry claimed he felt "trapped" in his relationship with Theresa, whom he alleged went on The Golden Bachelor for the wrong reasons.

Theresa recalled being nothing but supportive when she found out Gerry was in love again, especially since he's living with an incurable cancer.

Theresa, however, was apparently hurt and offended by the claims in Gerry's new memoir.

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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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