Savage move? It sure seemed like it. During the Monday, February 24, episode of The Bachelor, producers decided to have Peter Weber‘s final three, Hannah Ann Sluss, Victoria Fuller and Madison Prewett, stay in the same hotel suite. While this may have been normal during an earlier episode, this was fantasy suite week — so things became very awkward every morning when each woman would return. Luckily, ABC loves an awkward silence.
However, there was a reason for the sleeping arrangements, Chris Harrison revealed during the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast epsiode posted on Tuesday, February 25.
“Peter has trouble making decisions. I don’t know if you guys have noticed that,” the host, 48, began, poking fun at the 28-year-old Bachelor’s journey. “The king of kicking the can down the road. Heaven forbid you make a decision but, there are things that we do as producers that will force you into this uncomfortable zone and force you into making a decision. Sometimes we do it for your behalf, sometimes we do it for the Bachelor, the guys or the girls. And this situation was pretty extraordinary because Peter had kicked the can down the road, but this time also Madison had.”
Madison, 23, didn’t tell Peter that she had been saving herself for marriage until they were on their fantasy suite date. However, before the date, she told him that she’d have a very hard time moving forward with him if he slept with any of the other women — but she didn’t want to give him an ultimatum, per se.
“This was to force a situation that had to happen, and it had to happen this week because if we get to proposal week, then this guy is really screwed and there’s no chance this works,” the producer explained to hosts Rachel Lindsay and Becca Kufrin. “We gotta figure this out and there’s really only one way to do it. Yeah, it was tough love and it was really awkward and — again, as you know — in the history of the show, I don’t know if we’ve ever done this, but we decided to do it this week because these are conversations that needed to be had. It was because of, I think, the double standard in the things that Peter was gonna deal with. We kind of needed the women’s perspective on this. We needed Madison to face Victoria and Hannah Ann and have them express their emotions on this because, again, it’s just this guy and his perspective, and I don’t know if that’s the greatest thing right now.”
At the end of Monday’s episode, the pilot begged Madison to stay as she was tempted to walk away after he admitted he was “intimate” with others during their dates. It hasn’t yet been revealed which two women will make it to the finale.
“There is so much that’s left to unpack and to go through,” Harrison later teased on the podcast. “I feel like the season has barely started, honestly, considering what’s about to happen in the final week of this show, which is wild to say.”
The Bachelor airs on ABC Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.
