Golden Bachelor update: Delray woman's rose wilts; there won't be a hometown date for her
DELRAY BEACH — Bachelor Nation wasn’t expecting it. And Delray Beach's Ellen Goltzer wasn’t either.
The "Golden Bachelor" Season 1 favorite and retired teacher parted from the California mansion during Episode 5 on Thursday, after a tearful goodbye to 72-year-old Gerry Turner.
Goltzer had been one of the six remaining women in the house. If she’d received a rose, she would have been showing Turner around Delray Beach's "Village by the Sea" during next week’s episode, which will feature hometown visits with the last three contestants.
It’s a change from the usual four hometown visits the ABC reality dating show bachelor typically makes. But Goltzer, 71, was not alone. Contestants Sandra Mason and Susan Noles, too, were sent home in what appeared to be one of Turner’s most taxing distributions of roses.
'Golden Bachelor' recap: What happened on episode 5?
Thursday night’s episode started off with Turner, 72, taking Faith Martin, 61, on what the show’s host, Jesse Palmer, called a “once-in-a-lifetime one-on-one.”
“Each rose this week means I am going to meet their families,” Turner of Big Long Lake, Indiana, said preceding the date. “Their children. Their grandchildren.”
The pair took a romantic excursion by way of helicopter over California. Martin was in heaven, she said.
After then landing on a yacht in the middle of the ocean, Martin and Turner enjoyed champagne, charcuterie and a conversation good enough for her to receive the first hometown rose. She returned to the mansion on cloud nine.
The next date was a group one — Turner took the other five women to the Santa Monica Pier. It would be the last quality time he could share with the women before making his final decision about which families he would meet.
“Feeling like a kid again is how I’ve felt for the last couple of weeks,” Goltzer said. “It’s just really exciting.”
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On the ferris wheel with Turner, Goltzer reiterated her confidence in him and how their relationship was blossoming.
“I cant wait to be a teammate with you,” she told him.
“I have always had strong feelings for you ever since the beginning,” Turner said, reminding her of their hot-air balloon ride earlier in the season.
“I haven’t found someone like him in over seven or eight years,” Goltzer said tearfully to the camera. “I’m falling in love with him, and I think I might even be in love with him.”
At the pier she later told Noles she felt her heart was going to explode, either from happiness or an emotional breakdown.
The emotions were evidently too much for Turner, who stepped back on his distribution of a rose that night, calling it a “heavy responsibility looming over his head.” He needed one more day for clarity, he told the women, deiciding instead to distribute the next two roses at the rose ceremony.
At the ceremony, Martin was the only contestant with a rose.
“I’m feeling confident, but apprehensive,” Goltzer said. “If I don’t get a rose tonight, I will be devasteted.”
After all, she had laid it all on the line for Turner at the Santa Monica Pier just the night before.
“Believe me, I know that I have the responsiblity right now of holding your hearts in my hands,” Turner told the six women before offering Leslie Fhima his second rose and Theresa Nist his third.
Goltzer was the final contestant to say her goodbyes, and the only one to be walked out by Turner.
“It's a very sad and awful feeling that I have right now,” Turner said. “The lasting memory of the night is obviously Ellen.”
He tells her that not offering her a rose was his most difficult decision yet.
“You put yourself out there like I asked,” he said. Then they hugged, Goltzer boarded the van and kissed his hand farewell.
“It was really a shock, truthfully,” Goltzer tells the camera in the car. “I just thought he was the one. So it's really upsetting.”
But she said she remained optimistic about love and about finding it at this stage in her life.
"I have a new lease on love," Goltzer posted afterward on Instagram. "I know I can fall in love again, and like my best friend Roberta said — never say never."
Who are the remaining women on 'The Golden Bachelor?'
Faith Martin, 61, Benton City, Wasington.: High school teacher with two sons and four grandchildren. Aside from teaching, she is a radio host, singer and self-proclaimed thrill-seeker.
Leslie Fhima, 64, Golden Valley, Minnesota: Fitness instructor with three kids and three grandchildren. She's run 10 marathons and continues her search for "her running buddy for life."
Theresa Nist, 70, Shrewsbury, New Jersey: Financial services professional with at least two kids and six grandchildren. She enjoys playing board games, gardening, reading romance novels and hula hooping.
How to watch the next episode of 'The Golden Bachelor'
Episode 6 will air at 8 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 2 on ABC.
"I’m in love with three women," Turner is heard saying in teasers for the coming hometown visits.
Jasmine Fernández is a journalist covering Delray Beach and Boca Raton for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at jfernandez@pbpost.com and follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @jasminefernandz. Help support our work. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Golden Bachelor episode 5: Ellen Goltzer from Delray Beach eliminated
