Our “Golden Bachelor” reality check: It’s not the first time a lapse in vetting led to juicier TV

Color me shocked. Gerry Turner, the 72-year-old star of “The Golden Bachelor,” a grown man who intentionally agreed to star in one of the most popular reality TV franchises . . . was not entirely honest about his past?

Do you mean to tell me that, contrary to his claim that he hadn’t dated in 45 years, he actually did? Are you saying that the producers might have stretched the truth when it came to characterizing his career history?

My stars. We may never believe in TV-manufactured romance again.

Sarcasm aside, it’s kind of incredible that “The Bachelor” franchise is being yanked back into this same doghouse for another mild imbroglio, this time courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter. This is a brand and a genre that is constantly scrutinized for social media screw-ups, closet-dwelling skeletons and general behind-the-scenes shenanigans. Both “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” have generated their share of past headlines making people question the level of vetting they apply to their pool of potential matches for a season’s star.

No “Bachelor” has been hyped up as much as Turner, a sexy senior who wept openly in the premiere as he tells the story about losing the love of his life to a suddenly illness. Turner’s pre-season press tour validated the apparent honesty of his vulnerability — writers and talk show hosts marveled at his good humor, lack of self-importance and radiant sincerity. 

All of that was destined to place him on some reporter’s radar. Sure enough, by glancing at Turner’s LinkedIn page, chatting with a few former co-workers, and doing a bit of poking around social gathering spots in Hudson, Indiana – population 537 – THR revealed Turner’s glow of perfection to be part pyrite. Still glittery, certainly, but maybe a bit less rare and precious than advertised.

Not that it matters, since the story emerged days before the season finale, where Turner chose 70-year-old fellow widow Theresa Nist who bonded with Turner over their grief experience, sending home Leslie Fhima, the 64-year-old aerobics instructor who was very pissed to have put on a $60,000 dress and diamond earrings for nothing.  

How does Fhima feel now? Episodes of “The Golden Bachelor,” like others in the franchise, are filmed months ahead of their premiere. Prince’s “Sexy Dancer” muse might be relieved to have dodged a bullet.

Gerry Turner and Leslie on “The Golden Bachelor” finale (Disney/John Fleenor)Regardless of the extent to which the THR report may stick, “The Golden Bachelor” is already being credited for resurrecting the franchise, drawing the biggest total audience for the franchise since a February 2021 episode of “The Bachelor” –  a magnet for a less than savory reason. It also pulled strong ratings in the coveted 18-49 demographic and has been killing it on streaming, as THR previously reported.

Thursday’s season finale drew an audience of more than 6 million, according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data — the best total viewership for the franchise since the March 2021 season finale of “The Bachelor” which, again, was a ratings draw for reasons ABC would rather people forgot about.

Right now Bachelor Nation youths love the “Golden” season, as do the Olds, because the network sold Turner as the genuine article.

Whether Turner and Nist’s love match turns out to be the Real Deal doesn’t concern most of us in the long run. The brand’s poor track record in the lasting relationship department is widely known, and that hasn’t stopped people from tuning in.

Besides, Turner’s tarnish marks aren’t especially egregious. It boils down to a few fibs, really. Contrary to his story on the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast that he engaged in one kiss before coming on the show, a few women have come forward to clarify that, au contraire, he kissed a few more misses in recent years than he claims.

THR also revealed that producers massaged his description as a “retired restaurateur,” finding that his more recent work history includes installing hot tubs and serving as a maintenance man at a mental health facility. Most people understand how central artifice is to creating reality TV, and in dating terms, a former restaurant owner is more likely to get swipe right than “retired maintenance man” or even “one-time hamburger drive-in proprietor.”

A less attractive part of Turner’s past is relayed through an ex-girlfriend THR identifies as Carolyn, with whom he shared a relationship spanning nearly three years, beginning around a month after his wife died . . . yikes. They even moved in together. But Carolyn’s account of how he ended things is worse.

After a relationship marked by Turner being neat freak and a skinflint, they broke up after he shamed her for gaining 10 pounds. On the day she was supposed to move out, Carolyn says she accidentally broke her foot, requiring emergency surgery. When she returned to their shared home he accused her of somehow “using the fall as an excuse to prolong her stay” and ordered her to go to a hotel, she claims. This, in the dead of Midwestern winter.

Between corroborating insights from Carolyn’s indignant friend Susan and spilled tea from Turner’s outstandingly named local spot The Shady Nook (!) the report has a whiff of cheap gossip to it and not much more. Still, these were details ABC might have accounted for before constructing the sensitive, chaste gentleman fantasy that made everyone weak in the knees.

Every reality show purports to do cursory background checks on participants, be they the stars or other contenders. Depending on the methods employed by the hired agency this can include searching for criminal records or other major black marks on someone’s file. But past “Bachelor” seasons have proven some of these passes to have been insufficiently thorough.

In 2018 “Bachelorette” audiences watched Lincoln Adim receive an early first impression rose from Becca Kufrin in the same week he pleaded guilty to indecent assault and battery for groping a woman on a Boston harbor cruise . . . in 2016.

That level of vetting requires investigative expertise. The level of dish THR pulled up on Turner requires a cursory search of publicly accessible information, along with a few phone calls – easily done but again, something the show’s producers have neglected time and again. During her season Kufrin was also courted by Garrett Yrigoyen, who liked Instagram posts attacking transgender people, undocumented immigrants and Parkland, Florida mass shooting survivor David Hogg. Anyone, including a few interns, could have spotted those before Yrigoyen made it to the mansion. That did not happen.

Neither Adim nor Yrigoyen won but won’t be forgotten thanks to this lapse — which should not have happened a year after Rachel Lindsay became the franchise’ first Black Bachelorette. Early in her season reporters dug up the Twitter feed of one of her suitors, Lee Garrett, and found a trove of anti-Black racism, sexism, homophobia and Islamophobia. Lindsay ended up eliminating him on the sixth episode, and we would say “phew!” to that, except for that being four episodes after the world found out she was being courted by a bigot.

Surely the show would have tightened its filters after that but uh, no. In 2019, “Bachelorette” Hannah Brown chose Jed Wyatt. The woman he was still dating at the time was not pleased about that, and shared as much with reporters.

The Bachelor (ABC)Similar sloppiness happened yet again in 2021 when the franchise welcomed Matt James as its first Black Bachelor in its 25 seasons. James went on to pick Rachael Kirkconnell as the recipient of his final rose, but held back from giving her an engagement ring. Good thing too, because by the finale Kirkconnell had been outed on social media for having attended an antebellum-themed “Old South” party with her sorority sisters and liking others’ racist posts.

This is why that February 2021 episode enjoyed a ratings spike, leading one to wonder if the whole lax vetting of “Bachelors” and “Bachelorette” contenders isn’t entirely accidental.

Next to all that, what’s a little resume massaging and lies by omission between old friends? Not much. Especially in the same year that yielded the “Love Is Blind” drama wherein two people who previously dated, Uche Okoroha and Lydia Velez Gonzalez, ended up in the same supposed “sight unseen” dating experiment. That show’s creator, Chris Coelen, swore to People that the producers had “absolutely no idea” and were as shocked as the rest of us were. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world” and so forth.

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This is also the year that “Vanderpump Rules” viewers gave the show its highest ratings ever thanks to “Scandoval,” in which the real-life break-up of two longtime “characters,” Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix, preceded a season where their relationship seemed rock solid.

Watching Madix’s traitorous bestie Raquel Leviss display loyalty for the cameras transformed the viewing experience, driving home the artificiality of reality TV relationships. Even ones lasting nine years are part performance, illustrating that whether won by contest or witnessed on Bravo, nothing gold ever stays in reality TV.

Raquel Leviss, Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix on “Vanderpump Rules” (Nicole Weingart/Bravo)Then again, the appeal of “Scandoval” is in the organic allure of its real world messiness shattering the carefully edited “Vanderpump Rules” aquarium, whereas those who make “Golden Bachelor” may have known all about Turner’s dating history and figured a few broken hearts in his near past could be skipped over without much risk. 

They’re probably right. Shortly after proposing ABC set Thursday, Jan. 4 as its date for “The Golden Wedding,” in which Turner and Nist’s nuptials will be broadcast live. As for scenes from their marriage, those who remain invested can read up on it later.

Episodes of “The Golden Bachelor” are streaming on Hulu.