Gerry Turner’s “Golden Bachelor” runner-up Leslie Fhima claimed that the lead “lied” to her during their emotional breakup — and now viewers allegedly know why.
The 64-year-old fitness instructor revealed what Turner told her behind closed doors (and off-camera) on the latest episode of the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast, which dropped on Monday.
“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. [In] two more days, we’ll be done with this [and] be together, start our life,’” she recalled to hosts and “Bachelor in Paradise” couple Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt.
“Did he say, ‘Will you marry me?’ in there, no, but he all but said that,” Leslie claimed. “I would’ve been happy with just, ‘I love you,’ but he took it to a different level.”
Last week, Bachelor Nation fans watched as the retired grandpa, 72, split from Fhima hours before proposing to Theresa Nist. After speaking with her — and Fhima sensing something was off — he returned to her room after crying in the stairwell. As Fhima opened the door to let him in she knew she was going to hear bad news.
“Your words just meant so much to me, and that’s why I was blindsided,” she said as they talked on a couch. “You made it sound like you chose me. You led me down a path and then you took a turn and left me there. I wasn’t sure what changed or what happened.”
Turner apologized and said they “got caught up in moments” and believed she was his future wife until he “suddenly knew you weren’t.”
On Monday, Fhima further described how her overnight with Turner ended in the morning without cameras present.
“We woke up the next morning and he left [and] turned around three times and blew me kisses. He didn’t want to leave. That’s why I wasn’t worried that he was going on a date [with Theresa],” she continued to claim on the podcast. “I just knew that he had to get through the motions of it. And I mean, I was 100% sure that I was it … He didn’t say, ‘I have such a hard decision to make.’ Nothing like that.”
“I feel like I didn’t get a ton of closure with him, but that’s OK. I felt like I closed it with myself. What can [the lead] say? They had to make a choice. It’s his journey, his choice. But he could have chosen not to say those things to me. That’s all,” she went on. “He said he wasn’t ready [or] his heart wasn’t ready, or something like that. I kind of was glazing over at that point. But I didn’t get closure from him. And I don’t know if anything he would’ve said would’ve really given me closure.”
Turner recently admitted that he also lied about not dating following his wife Toni’s death in 2017.
“I guess I would say this: I dated a number of women, but then it becomes an issue of how you define whether you’re in a relationship,” he said on a recent Zoom call with Nist, 70, with Katie Couric.
Ahead of the finale, a woman named Carolyn also alleged to the Hollywood Reporter that she was Turner’s ex and he dumped her when she gained 10 pounds.
“I have the wonderful love of Theresa, my partner. I don’t have time to reflect on comments like this. I’m happy to look forward,” he told The Los Angeles Times in response. He added to the New York Times: “I guess I haven’t really looked at it as how accurate it is.”
Turner and Nist, meanwhile, are focusing on the positive. Their TV wedding, titled “The Golden Wedding,” will air on ABC on Jan. 4, 2024.
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