It’s time for the final golden rose — and a golden wedding!
The first-ever season of “The Golden Bachelor” came to a close Thursday as Gerry Turner was forced to choose between Minnesota native Leslie Fhima and New Jersey’s Theresa Nist.
In the end, Turner went with Nist.
“I came to the realization that you’re not the right person for me to live with,” Turner, 72, told Nist, 70, on Thursday night’s finale before getting down on one knee. “You’re the person that I can’t live without.”
And save the date — Turner and Nist’s wedding will be broadcast live on ABC on Jan. 4, 2024.
The first-ever “Golden Bachelor” contestant said that while he loved them all, “there was a clear choice” with Nist.
“I’ve found the person,” Turner told TV personality Gayle King a few weeks prior to the finale adding that he came to the decision while in the fantasy suites.
But who were the two women currently vying for Turner’s heart?
Shrewsbury native Theresa Nist, who started as just one of three women from the Garden State, revealed during the season’s first episode that she had very strong ties to her Monmouth County community.
According to the 70-year-old’s Instagram, Nist frequently travels to South Carolina to visit her son and grandchildren.
Nist also reportedly works as a senior compliance and operations liaison at a wealth management company in New Jersey.
The New Jersey native started her time on the show with a bang by being one of the first women that Turner kissed on the show — something Turner had promised his kids, whom he shared with his high school sweetheart Toni before she died in 2017, he would not do.
“I promised my daughters and granddaughters that I would not kiss anyone on night one. And I failed,” Turner told The Post before the show’s premiere. “As I recall, I think I only failed once.”
Nist later shared the steamy moment on Instagram captioning the photo “I usually try to stay away from sugar but this time I just couldn’t help myself.”
While Nist has a decent shot at winning, it was clear that Leslie Fhima would not go down without a fight.
The fitness instructor was told by the besotted bachelor that she “could be the one” during the show’s most recent episode.
According to Lizzy Pace, co-author of the book “How to Win the Bachelor: The Secret to Finding Love and Fame on America’s Favorite Reality Show,” Fhima, 64, has been a star ever since the trailer for this season dropped.
“I think she’s been one of the strongest players of the season,” said Pace on her podcast “Game of Roses.” “She strikes me as a free-spirit character, a la Kaitlyn Bristowe.”
One thing that could work in Fhima’s favor is that both she and Turner are from the Midwest as Turner is from Indiana and Fhima from Minnesota.
In fact, Fhima once used their location as a way to flirt with Turner.
“Instead of bicoastal,” Fhima once flirted, “we can be bi-Midwestern.”
The road to the final rose has not been easy for Turner, who once said that he “hated the rose ceremonies.”
It was revealed Wednesday that Turner once allegedly dumped a woman he had been seeing due to the fact she had gained weight.
The woman, who went by Carolyn, told the Hollywood Reporter that Turner was flirting with her a mere three months after his wife had died and later moved into his Indiana home in 2018.
Turner’s alleged relationship with the woman sputtered out just months before the man’s high school reunion in Oct. 2019.
“I’m not taking you to the reunion looking like that,” Carolyn claims Turner told her after she had gained 10 pounds.
According to the woman, Turner then demanded she leave his home by early 2020.
Things got worse when Carolyn suffered an injury after falling down the stairs while packing up her things and was forced to endure a brief stay at the emergency room.
The woman said that Turner allegedly said that she hurt herself on purpose and forced her to live in a hotel.
“I really wish this would’ve worked out,” she recalled Turner telling her. “Call me when you get to your hotel, so I know you made it safe.”
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