Madison “Madi” Prewett found a clandestine way to communicate with her friends and family during her stint on The Bachelor.
“I’m here in this crazy environment [where] a bunch of girls are fighting over the attention of one male — and [it’s] not a godly environment,” Prewett, 29, claimed on the Monday, March 16, episode of her “Stay True” podcast. “No one is, like, trying to seek holiness. It’s a crazy concept in and of itself, and so I’m just trying to figure out this life — and I have access to no one.”
Prewett appeared on Peter Weber’s season 24 of The Bachelor, which aired in 2020, and made it all the way to the finale. Prewett, however, self-eliminated from the show after finding out that Weber, now 34, had sex with another contestant in the fantasy suites.
Prewett, who was saving herself for marriage, and Weber briefly reconciled after filming wrapped. (Weber got engaged to Hannah Ann Sluss during the Bachelor finale, but broke up with the model, now 29, over his unresolved feelings for Prewett.)
Even before Prewett left the show, she started doubting her connection with Weber after he met her family during Hometowns Week.
“It gets to these points where it’s, like, tormenting. You, kind of, feel a little bit like you’re in this jail in, like, ‘What am I doing?’” Prewett recalled to her college friend Erica Hardesty on Monday’s episode. “I didn’t feel a peace to leave the show yet, and so, it’s just this wrestle of, ‘Lord, do I stay? Do I leave? I wish I could talk to someone.’”
After Weber visited Prewett’s family in Alabama, she was sequestered in a hotel room until the cast’s next rose ceremony.
“I’m just in California all week, just me and they have one [producer] assigned to you that, kind of, looks after you,” she recalled. “I was hit in some moments [where] I was really in my head.”
According to Prewett, she was conflicted between her feelings for Weber and knowing that her dad didn’t give the airline pilot “his blessing” to propose.
“I’m, like, ‘Well, OK, I can’t say yes to an engagement,’” Prewett said, noting she subsequently questioned whether to stay on the show or leave on her own accord. “I was, like, ‘I’ve got to contact my people.’”
Bachelor contestants famously don’t have access to their phones during production, so Prewett thought of a secret way to gain access to her email account.
“I don’t even know how, [but] I somehow made a trickery to get the hotel key,” she said, claiming that producers also keep hold of the room keys. “I got the hotel key, I sneak out of the room, and I think I [told my producer], like, ‘I want to go work out.’”
Instead of going into the gym, Prewett went to the hotel’s business space to use a computer.
“I go to the office, and I find the computer. I log into my email, and I immediately email [Erica] and my mom,” she said. “I’m, like, ‘Guys, I don’t know what to do. Please pray, I don’t know if I should stay. I don’t know if I should break up with him. What do I do?’ [It was a] 911-type, ask God, tell me what I should do? [message].’”
Prewett sent her email, returned to her hotel room and waited for a response.
“The next day, I do the same thing. I came back down to the computer and I had an email from you guys,” she said. “All week long [we had] this back and forth exchange. It was insane. … I’m so thankful I had that though ‘cause that was my therapy, my outlet [and it changed my headspace]. I feel like I had a little bit more clear-mindedness.”
After Prewett left The Bachelor, she moved on with now-husband Grant Troutt. They welcomed their first child, daughter Hosanna, in 2025.
