Bob Barker’s longtime girlfriend, Nancy Burnet, is reflecting on their time together following the TV show host’s death on Saturday at the age of 99.
Barker is best known for hosting “The Price Is Right” for 35 years, but he’d been with Burnet even longer than that. The couple had been involved for four decades when Barker died. Burnet explained how they never married despite Barker proposing several times.
Barker’s first wife, Dorothy Jo Gideon, died in 1981.
“Neither of us had any desire ever to be married again, and he believed it when we first started seeing each other,” Burnet said, per People. “But as the years went by, he proposed to me many times. I just said, ‘I just don’t want to be married.’ Our humor was very dry. We kidded in a way. And he said, ‘Not even to me?’ And I said, ‘Especially not to you.'”
Part of her hesitation was their age difference, Burnet said. “There was a difference, a 19-and-a-half, 20-year difference in our ages, so I said, ‘What would people think here?'” she told the outlet. “And he said, ‘Oh, I don’t care what they think.’ He was interested in doing it anyway. He didn’t care.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP
Burnet said Barker even involved his attorney and drew up a prenup without her knowledge. “He had his attorney send it to me,” she explained. “I said, ‘I just don’t want to do this. I’m not going to accept this.’ And he said, ‘Well, if you don’t like the terms of the prenup, take it to your own attorney. You can change it.’ I never did do it.”
Burnet also reflected on how passionate Barker was about animal rights. She said they met on an animal adoption day in 1983.
“I knew almost nothing about him really,” Burnet said. “I knew he did ‘The Price Is Right.’ I knew that he was interested in animals, and he had the format to get the word out.”
She continued, “He said, ‘I’ll bet you are a wild-eyed radical.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t know about the ‘wild-eyed’ part.’”
They connected due to their shared interest in animal rights. “He was willing to use his name value,” Burnet said of Barker. “He was willing to stand up when things were controversial.”