Bob Barker's Girlfriend Nancy Burnet Reflects on Their 40-Year Relationship on His 100th Birthday (Exclusive)
Jessica Wilkins Bob Barker was the romantic type, one to make grand gestures again and again, even if his longtime companion, Nancy Burnet, rebuffed him time and again. He was also charming and had a dry sense of humor, the attribute Nancy misses the most. He was the love of her life, and on what would have been his 100th birthday, Nancy reflects on their 40-year relationship, why she never accepted any one of his marriage proposals (there was even a prenup!), his offer to buy her a house next to his when she refused to move in with him and how he would have reacted to seeing 100.
Only ET spoke with Nancy on what would have been the iconic TV personality's 100th birthday on Tuesday. He died on Aug. 26.
Nancy and Bob shared a special bond, born out of their undying love for animals. They met in March 1983 at an animal adoption event he was co-hosting.
Nancy tells ET she and a friend arrived late to the event, almost as it was about to end. She hadn't planned on going out that day but she changed her mind. Then Bob walked into her life and never looked back.
"That first day, he walked over to me ... and said, 'Hi, I'm Bob Barker,'" Nancy recalls to ET's Kevin Frazier with a laugh. "'Are you here to adopt a dog?' And I said no and I ended up adopting a dog anyway. It was the last one. He didn't want to go back into his cage, so, of course I took him with me. And then he invited me to dinner that day."
But Nancy turned him down.
"I told him that I couldn't, that my friends were with me and we were in my car and that it would have to be some other time," she recalls.
Bob, never one to be easily deterred, offered a solution. Nancy says he told her to "let your friends drive your car home and I'll drive you home."
Bob swung and missed that night. But they'd soon connect and bond over their advocacy for animals. He donated some $25 million to help establish the United Activists for Animal Rights charity, which Nancy ran. He later established a foundation focusing on pet population. In 1979, Bob began the tradition of signing off of The Price Is Right with his trademark phrase, "This is Bob Barker reminding you to help control the pet population -- have your pets spayed or neutered."
From organizing animal abuse protests to running foundations helping animals throughout the world, Bob and Nancy never lost sight of their love for animals, and it was that kind of dedication that only strengthened their bond. That they worked together helping these animals is something she misses the most about her beloved Bob.
For 40 years, Bob and Nancy dedicated their lives to animals and to each other -- even if she never lived with him or wanted to get married to him. Not that Bob didn't try every now and then to change her mind on both fronts.
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‘Price Is Right’ Host Bob Barker’s Fortune Set to Be Donated to Non-Profit Organizations"When we first started seeing each other, I asked him if he ever intended to remarry," said Nancy, who started dating Bob two years after his wife, Dorothy, died from lung cancer in 1981. "And he said no, and I said, perfect, because neither do I. We can move forward. Well, that lasted for a while and then eventually he did -- many times -- propose over the years."
Bob's longtime publicist, Roger Neal, first shared that tidbit with ET just days after Bob died.
"Bob actually asked Nancy to marry him several times, she said no," Neal told ET. "She was fine with the way things were. She loved being his companion, but he did want to marry her."
And because she wouldn't marry him and wouldn't move in with him, Nancy says Bob went as far as offering to buy her a house next to his. Again she declined the offer.
"I didn't want to do that either," she says. "I just had no intention of ever remarrying. And, of course, I didn't want to live with anyone. I'm a Christian and I have some pretty strong values about that."
But Bob didn't take no for an answer. He figured Nancy would relent one day. So much so, Nancy says Bob took it upon himself to draft a prenup in the event she ever said yes one day.
"He had his attorney draft a prenup without talking to me about it in advance, but he had it drafted up by a well-known attorney in L.A., prepared it and sent that to me," Nancy recalls.
She added, "He just didn't really take no for an answer."
And, yes, she still has the prenup.
"I have a keepsake," she says with a laugh.
All these years later, that story still makes her laugh. And it's what she misses the most about him.
"The humor," she says when asked what she misses the most about her soulmate. "We had a very similar humor about things. Kind of rather dry humor. I guess just chatting [too]. He had a really wonderful, charmed life."
And if he were alive, what would have been his reaction to living to 100?
"He'd just say, '100, I can't believe it,'" Nancy says. "...'And I'm just as cute as I ever was.'"
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