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Joan Vassos Shares Update on Gerry Turner’s Cancer While Revealing They’re Still ‘Friends’
Joan Vassos has shared an update on ex Gerry Turner’s cancer, as well the status of their relationship after their split on 2023’s The Golden Bachelor.
“I knew about that already. I knew about that last year actually and I have spoken to him,” Joan, 62, said of Gerry’s cancer diagnosis in an interview with Us Weekly published on February 6, 2025. “He and I are friends. We text every once in a while. He’s all good.”
Joan added that the news of Gerry’s illness was “shocking,” noting that “no one wants to hear the C word ever.” However, she explained that his cancer is “very slow moving.”
“Sometimes they never even treat them for it,” she continued. “Like, it never becomes an issue. So he’s at the stage of this cancer that he’s not even being treated for it.”
Gerry, 72, revealed that he had been diagnosed with bone marrow cancer in a December 2024 interview with People.
“There’s a topic that I haven’t wanted to talk about until now,” he said. “I think it’s time, also because it probably will clear up a lot of mystery around what happened back in February, March and April.”
The Indiana native explained that his cancer diagnosis contributed to his divorce from ex Theresa Nist, whom he married in January 2024 after the two found love on the inaugural season of The Golden Bachelor. The former couple later announced their split in April 2024, telling fans that they had decided to divorce because they couldn’t decide on where to live. However, there was more going on at the time than people knew.
“As Theresa and I were trying very hard to find our lifestyle and where we were going to live and how we were going to make our life work, I was unfortunately diagnosed with cancer,” Gerry told People.
Gerry said he was diagnosed with Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, a slow-growing form of bone marrow cancer that “begins in the white blood cells,” according to the Mayo Clinic. He learned about his diagnosis when he saw a doctor about a shoulder injury.
“The orthopedic surgeon said, ‘Yeah Gerry, there’s not much we can do for your shoulder, but there are some unusual blood markers here.’ And so an orthopedic surgeon went to my family doctor, my family doctor referred me to an oncologist, and now I’m working with a hematology-oncology group in Fort Wayne,” Gerry explained.
The reality star added that he was “a bit in denial for a while” after he was diagnosed.
“Unfortunately, there’s no cure for it. So that weighs heavily in every decision I make. It was like 10 tons of concrete were just dropped on me,” he concluded.
While Gerry was blindsided by the news, a source exclusively told Life & Style on January 1 that he had gotten “over the denial phase and [wants] to help others with this disease by sharing his experience.”
“The good news is he’s not going soon,” the source added. “He’s got a 60 percent chance of 10 years or more.”
The insider concluded, “His kids and relatives in Indiana are being super supportive, anything he needs, they’re there. Theresa’s heart goes out to him, too, and she’s letting him know that he’s in her thoughts and prayers. Everyone is pulling for him.”
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