- Gerry Turner is the man looking for love on The Golden Bachelor.
- The Golden Bachelor will feature 22 women competing for Gerry’s heart.
- The Golden Bachelor will premiere on September 28.
The Golden Bachelor is the next spinoff in The Bachelor franchise. The upcoming series was announced by ABC on May 16, and the show will be a part of ABC’s fall lineup. Gerry Turner is the older gentleman who is looking for love on The Golden Bachelor. Gerry is a 71-year-old retired restauranteur from Indiana, and he’ll be trying to find love in one of the 22 women vying for his heart.
We’ve got the latest updates on The Golden Bachelor below. From the premiere date to the fabulous ladies to the premise of the show, here’s what you need to know about the spinoff.
The Golden Bachelor Premiere Date
The Golden Bachelor will premiere on September 28. The show will air Thursdays on ABC at 8 p.m. ET. New episodes of Bachelor In Paradise season 9 will air starting at 9:01 p.m. ET. The Golden Bachelor will also be available to stream on Hulu the next day. Before The Golden Bachelor, season 20 of The Bachelorette (starring Charity Lawson) came to a close.
Who Is The Golden Bachelor?
ABC announced the man who is leading The Golden Bachelor on July 17. Gerry is 71 years old, which makes him the oldest lead star of a Bachelor franchise show. ABC said that Gerry “is often busy hosting barbecues, playing pickleball, cheering on his favorite Chicago sports teams, four-wheeling, and spending time with friends and family at restaurants and local haunts.” Gerry has two daughters and two granddaughters. He was married to his high school sweetheart Toni for 43 years until she got sick and died in 2017.
In the first trailer, Gerry opens up about losing his wife. “I took my wife to the emergency room on July 7, and she passed away on July 15,” Gerry says as he cries. He adds, “It will be 6 years since she passed away. No one is going to replace Toni. But the love of my daughters and my granddaughters pulled me out of a dark spot.”
Gerry stressed that he wants to find a woman to spend the rest of his life with. “I want to fall in love. I really want to find my person, who can put me in my place when I need it and make me smile at it,” he said. “The person who can lay down beside you at night [and] not have to say anything, and you can feel it. That’s love. That’s what I want. And I know that person’s out there.”
In a new promo released on August 21, Gerry sat down with his daughters and granddaughter. “Dating on this show is going to be an altogether new experience. What I hope is that I can look at one of those women and know that I’ve found the right person,” he said. When it comes to “modern dating,” Gerry’s granddaughter told him that he needed to up his texting game!
Gerry told his family that he hopes to “find that person that I know is the right one. I know you guys have always wanted me to be happy and that one person is out there somewhere that will do that.”
The crop of female contestants who will be romancing Gerry hasn’t been revealed yet. The stars on The Bachelor shows are typically in their 20s and 30s, but they’ll be decades older for the new spinoff. Gerry revealed to Variety that he gave producers a “general range of age” of women he’d want to date. “I think I said 60 to 70 but feel free to blur the lines,” he said.
Jesse Palmer — the host of The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and Bachelor in Paradise — is expected to also host The Golden Bachelor.
The Golden Bachelor Contestants
On August 30, ABC announced the 22 women who will be competing for Gerry’s heart on The Golden Bachelor. One of them is a familiar face. Patty James, the mom of The Bachelor season 25 star Matt James, is one of the contestants. See the full list of women below:
Anna, 61, a retired nutritionist from Summit, N.J.
April, 65, a therapist from Port St. Lucie, Fla.
Christina, 73, a retired purchasing manager from Sierra Madre, Calif.
Edith, 60, a retired realtor from Downey, Calif.
Ellen, 71, a retired teacher from Delray Beach Fla.
Faith, 60, a high school teacher from Benton City, Wash.
Jeanie, 65, a retired project manager from Estill Springs, Tenn.
Joan, 60, a private school administrator from Rockland, Md.
Kathy, 70, a retired educational consultant from Austin, Texas
Leslie, 64, a fitness instructor from Minneapolis, Minn.
Maria, 60, a health and wellness director from Teaneck, N.J.
Marina, 60, an educator from Los Angeles, Calif.
Nancy, 60, a retired interior designer from Alexandria, Va.
Natascha, 60, a pro-aging coach and midlife speaker from New York City, N.Y.
Pamela, 75, a retired salon owner from Aurora, Ill.
Patty, 70, a retired real estate professional from Durham, N.C.
Peggy, 69, a dental hygienist from East Haven, Conn.
Renee, 67, a former Chicago Honey Bear Cheerleader from Middleton, Wis.
Sandra, 75, a retired executive assistant from Doraville, Ga.
Susan, 66, a wedding officiant from Aston, Penn.
Sylvia, 64, a public affairs consultant from Los Angeles, Calif.
Theresa, 69, a financial services professional from Shrewsbury, N.J.
What Is The Golden Bachelor About?
ABC released the official longline for The Golden Bachelor when the series was announced. It reads, “After more than 20 years of fostering young love on The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and Bachelor in Paradise, The Golden Bachelor showcases a whole new kind of love story – one for the golden years. On this all-new unscripted series, one hopeless romantic is given a second chance at love in the search for a partner with whom to share the sunset years of life. The women arriving at the mansion have a lifetime of experience, living through love, loss and laughter, hoping for a spark that ignites a future full of endless possibilities. In the end, will our Golden man turn the page to start a new chapter with the woman of his dreams?”
The Golden Bachelor has been in the works since at least 2020 when ABC put out a casting call for senior citizens looking for love. However, plans for the series stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rob Mills, an executive for ABC’s unscripted programming, addressed the senior citizen series in an interview with Variety in July 2020.
“Some of the casting interviews we got, they were just so touching,” Rob said. “It’s such a different way of doing ‘The Bachelor’ because these people are just at a totally different place in their lives. There is an interesting thing about people who have hit the other end of the spectrum, who’ve lived their lives, they’ve raised their kids, some have been widowed or divorced and maybe some have never been in love. We thought that would be an interesting dynamic through the ‘Bachelor’ prism.”