The Golden Bachelor star Gerry Turner has revealed if he has any regrets telling Leslie Fhima "I love you" or leading her on in the Fantasy Suite.
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Gerry dumped Leslie in second place on The Golden Bachelor in favor of his winner and eventual fiancee, Theresa Nist, and Leslie was absolutely heartbroken because she claimed Gerry had convinced her that she was The One and they were going to spend the rest of their lives together.
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Leslie therefore confronted Gerry on the live After the Final Rose special about how she felt betrayed, lied to, and misled.
Leslie told Gerry on ABC's November 30 broadcast, "Only you and I know what was said on the overnight. I'd never share that with anyone; it was our private time. But those words gave me 100 percent certainty that I was your girl and we were going to get engaged."
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Gerry told Access Hollywood in a recent joint interview with Theresa how Leslie had a lot of emotions on After the Final Rose about their breakup -- but "she deserves every one of those emotions."
Gerry explained, "[Leslie] was in the same process and the same boiler that I was, and so when she had to go home -- and all of that hurt was there -- and she didn't have a release for that, I was there to really accept anything she had to say."
The Golden Bachelor star said it was his "goal" to make Leslie "feel better when she left" the live show "than when she arrived."
But Gerry acknowledged how there was really nothing he could say to make Leslie feel better or to mend her broken heart.
"All of the apologies in the world don't really help her at that moment," Gerry said. "What does help is for her to get some of it off of her chest."
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Gerry also insisted that if he could go back in time, he wouldn't course correct or change how he had handled Leslie before and after their split.
"I have no regrets there," Gerry said, even when considering the repercussions of having told Leslie that he was in love with her before dumping her.
"I had those emotions and those feelings in that moment, and I've said to Theresa, 'I believed that I was in love with these women until I knew I wasn't. And the moment I knew I wasn't, it was one thousand percent clear for me."
Gerry added, "So I really can't say I have regrets. It's just part of the process that you have to go through."
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Leslie explained to The Golden Bachelor host Jesse Palmer on After the Final Rose that because of Gerry's reassurance and validation, she had envisioned a life with Gerry after the show in which they'd walk his dog together and go out to restaurants, both in Indianapolis and Minneapolis.
"I was blindsided because I wasn't sure how it changed or what happened," Leslie subsequently recalled to Gerry on After the Final Rose, adding how she thought she had fit in wonderfully with his family. "I feel like you painted a picture for me of what our life would look like... and I'd like to know what happened."
Gerry told Leslie that she was his person until he suddenly knew that she wasn't his person.
"It didn't really go wrong, Leslie, it was just better with someone else," Gerry said bluntly. "It was the right person in another direction, and I'm so terribly sorry. I'll never forgive myself for the pain I've caused along the way."
Leslie dropped tidbits about what Gerry had told her behind closed doors in the Fantasy Suite during the December 4 episode of the "Bachelor Happy Hour" podcast, which is co-hosted by Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt.
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"I don't want to say everything that he said, but it was 100 percent certainty when I woke up the next morning that I was going to be it."
Joe pointed out how Gerry and Theresa have said in post-show press interviews that Gerry basically let Theresa know in the Fantasy Suite he had picked her and essentially proposed marriage to her before the Final Rose Ceremony.
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"[Did he] propose to me? Well, he made plans with me for the future. He said, kind of like, 'Save the date. This is what we're going to do. I can't wait for us -- just two more days and we'll be done with this,'" Leslie recalled.
"[Gerry said], 'We'll be together and start our life.' Did he say in there, 'Will you marry me?' No. But he all BUT said that."
The 64-year-old fitness instructor from Minneapolis, MN, vented about how she "would've been happy with" a simple, "I love you" from Gerry.
"But he took it to a different level," Leslie claimed.
"And when we woke up the next morning and he left, he turned around three times and blew me kisses. He didn't want to leave, and that's why I wasn't worried that he was going on a date! I just knew that he had to get through the motions of it."
Leslie reiterated how she felt "100 percent sure" that she was "it" for Gerry.
"I mean, he didn't say, 'I have such a hard decision to make.' Nothing like that. So I just didn't think [he'd pick Theresa]," Leslie said.
She added, "We talked for hours, and there was so much I wanted to tell him about me. And he wanted to tell me about him... There were things he said to me in the overnight that alluded to his [next] overnight with Theresa, that it was not going to be the same."
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When asked how she personally would've handled saying, "I love you," had she been the Golden Bachelorette, Leslie said, "I for sure would never tell anyone I love them until I'm on that platform with them and I know it. I just wouldn't do that."
Leslie elaborated, "I would never want to hurt anyone the way that I was hurt or blindside them."
Leslie explained how her heart is "precious" to her and that it took her a lot to be so vulnerable with Gerry.
"I'm not just going to give it to anybody. When you say, 'I love you,' to somebody, it means something. And I don't just throw those words around... They meant something to me, to say it to Gerry," Leslie said.
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