‘The Golden Bachelor’: Ellen Reveals How Her Late Friend Roberta Would Feel About Her Run on the Show

Ellen Goltzer knows her best friend is proud of her. One day after Gerry Turner sent Ellen home from The Golden Bachelor, ET’s Denny Directo spoke to the 71-year-old retired teacher about how Roberta Zaktzer, her late best friend who encouraged her to apply for the show, would feel about her experience.

“She would be so proud of her convincing ability, because she’s so happy right now and proud of me. I think she is, because she knows that I don’t let loose a lot with my emotions and that I really maybe needed to find love again and whatever it was,” Ellen told ET. “We know each other so well that she knows me better than I know myself, so it was very good advice.”

Roberta found out The Golden Bachelor was casting right after she “was diagnosed with a very bad illness,” Ellen recalled.

“We’re Bachelor Nation fanatics. So she said, ‘Oh my God, look at this!.. It’s Golden Bachelor applications.’ And she looked at me and I went, ‘No way. Not a chance. No way,'” Ellen recalled. “She said, ‘You’re gonna tell me after what I just found out about me that you’re not gonna do my wish?’ I said, ‘I hate you’ and the rest is history.”

What followed, Ellen said, “was the most exciting adventure of my life.” Watching that air on TV was “fantastic” most of the time, but that didn’t hold true for “the last chapter” of her journey, which saw Gerry break things off ahead of Hometowns.

“It was really hard. I was very vulnerable. I don’t like putting myself in that spot,” Ellen said. “That’s probably why I left abruptly, because I felt very nervous about exposing even deeper feelings than I was showing before, which is hard enough for me.”

After Ellen’s name wasn’t called at the rose ceremony, she “was really surprised, sort of upset and angry.” While Gerry walked Ellen out of Bachelor Mansion, she didn’t wait around to have a long conversation with him, a decision she does not regret.

“Nothing really needed to be said… He didn’t choose me, that alone is my answer, that there wasn’t a connection for whatever reason. I don’t need an explanation,” she said. “I wanna be loved as much as someone loves me, and I want it to be reversed 50… If it’s not that way I really don’t want someone like that anyway, so that helped me through it.”

While Ellen isn’t thinking about the future too much right now, she’s open to any opportunity that may come her way, including The Golden Bachelorette, should it be announced.

“I learned through my friend Roberta never jump ahead in the day and enjoy it. I’m enjoying every single minute right now. I can’t predict what’s gonna happen,” Ellen said. “I will deal with whatever happens when it does, because life is great and I wanna take advantage of every second. That’s not being cheesy, that’s being real.”

The Golden Bachelor airs Thursdays on ABC. Follow along Gerry Turner‘s journey for love with ET’s coverage of the show.

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