Ben Higgins and Gerry Turner are two Bachelors of a kind.
During the Thursday, November 2, episode of The Golden Bachelor, Gerry, 72, confessed during his respective hometown dates with Faith Martin and Leslie Fhima that he was falling in love with them — which both of the women reciprocated.
Gerry’s actions immediately earned comparisons to season 20 lead Ben, now 34, who notably told both Lauren Bushnell Lane and JoJo Fletcher that he loved them.
“He is an Indiana boy … those Indiana boys have a lot of love to give,” Ben wrote via X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday night, referring to their mutual home state.
Thursday’s episode took Gerry across the United States to meet the families of Faith, 61, Leslie, 64, and fellow finalist Theresa Nist.
“It’s gonna look a lot different from someone who’s in their 20s and 30s doing hometowns because I will be meeting the children instead of meeting the parents, but that’s part of the excitement,” he said during the episode. “The last time I met a family of someone I was about to fall in love with was in 1968 when I met [my late wife] Toni’s family, so this is a critical week.”
After spending time with each woman’s children and grandkids on their home turf, he was excited to hear that all three ladies had fallen for him. “My feelings with each one of these women are strong. I only want to say ‘I love you’ to one more person in my lifetime,” Gerry added. “So, I hope I’m able to sort my feelings out and do the right thing.”
Theresa, 70, also revealed that she had fallen in love with Gerry, but he didn’t say it back right away. He did, however, note during a confessional interview that he felt those emotions growing. Ahead of the rose ceremony, Theresa told host Jesse Palmer that she was still waiting for a response from Gerry after confessing her feelings. Jesse, 44, was also stunned to hear both Faith and Leslie got answers out of Gerry.
Leslie earned the first rose of the evening, but Gerry was too overcome with emotion to hand out the second flower.
“I feel like I’m gonna throw up,” Gerry said after stepping outside of the Bachelor Mansion, interrupting the evening. “I’m looking at two women who either could be my partner for the rest of my life. Having to send someone home is gut-wrenching.”
Gerry exclusively told Us Weekly last month that he did not think it was “possible” to fall in love with more than one of his contestants prior to filming.
“How wrong I was,” he told Us in September. “Because through the course of the journey, I really felt strong feelings for several of the women. In retrospect, I realized that in that particular moment, whenever it was — the setting was such that, yeah, it was easy to look at someone and tell ’em that you loved ’em. But once you get through it all and you look back, then you realize that there is just really one person that really meets the standard in all situations that you want it to be.”
Ben was one of the first Bachelor leads to openly tell multiple people that he was in love during his stint on the reality show, which aired in 2016. (Most leads have opted only to reveal their feelings during the finale when they propose to one suitor.)
“It felt at the time like the right thing to do. It was validating,” Ben, who is now married to Jess Clarke, exclusively told Us in March 2021. “Now it feels like it was manipulating as well, because it just made me feel a little bit better about making sure they both knew where I was at. So, I probably could have been wiser not saying it.”
The Golden Bachelor airs on ABC Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET.
