By Clara Czer –
After she left her spot on The Bachelor due to her faith-based beliefs regarding purity and waiting for marriage, Madison Prewett has become a voice countering hookup culture.
She shocked her date, the cast, and viewers when she stood up and walked out from a romantic dinner with Bachelor Peter Weber, who appeared to be surprised by her stand: “I would have loved to have had that conversation a little bit sooner.”
“I’m not in any way trying to come across as judgmental,” she told Weber, a pilot who had walked away from his Christianity, in the fantasy suite. “But at the same time, those are my expectations that I have in life. In a week from now, if you’re down on one knee and six days before that you slept with somebody else, I just can’t wrap my mind around that.”
Weber admitted to getting intimate with two other contestants during the February 2020 showing of the 24th Season.
Madi explained: “My faith is literally everything to me and I have saved myself for marriage. I can’t keep moving forward and continuing this relationship if I don’t get the clarity and peace and confidence that I need.”
Following Madi’s walkout, her Instagram shot up to 1.7 M, and her TikTok hit 2M as Christian youth hungry for a good example responded to her choices. Madi has since written a book about purity, The Love Everybody Wants, and today is married to Pastor Grant Troutt.
Madi grew up in an Auburn, Alabama, home full of faith. Her dad was the director of operations for the men’s basketball team at Auburn University.
“If I wasn’t at the basketball gym, I was at church,” Madi reminisces.
It was through the temptations of high school that she clarified her convictions and goals in life. She got good grades and played sports successfully but had to work through all the male attention she got.
During college, she decided to “stop striving for the wrong things and instead trust and surrender.” She got involved in small groups, did lots of volunteering and had a steady boyfriend for four years.
She graduated in 2018 with a Bachelor of Science in Communications from Auburn University. Simultaneously, she completed a ministerial program of pastoral leadership at Highlands College of Birmingham.
Everything was going according to plan except her boyfriend. After four years of dating, why hadn’t he proposed? she wondered. Eventually, they mutually agreed to break it off.
In 2019, she worked as a foster care parent recruiter. She has also promoted Adullam House, Sozo Children, Orphanage Emmanuel, Haddie’s Home, Big House Foundation, LA Dream Center and Auburn Dream Center.
A friend who attended her Bible study applied on her behalf for her to become one of the contestants on The Bachelor. She had previously appeared on The Price is Right, winning $8,000, and seemed to have the type of bubbly personality T.V. shows love.
But when she got the call to participate in The Bachelor, she was surprised and even told the recruiter it must be a mistake because she wasn’t a good fit for the format. She checked with her mom, expecting confirmation that she shouldn’t participate in such a worldly show.
But strangely, her mom felt God said she should participate with 29 other contestants vying for the bachelor’s attentions. It could be a chance for her to shine her light of faith.
“Saying yes to The Bachelor wasn’t something I planned,” Madi says. “I trusted that this was where God was leading me and I was choosing to walk in courage, even though every voice around me (and even inside me) was fearful of what could happen.”
As the season progressed, it became evident that Madi and Peter had more than a small spark. But while Peter was playing the field, Madi stayed true to her Biblical convictions. By not saving himself, he lost the best, the one he liked.
“There’s a cost for every single one of us when we stay true to ourselves and when we stand firm in our beliefs against people who don’t understand it or who don’t like it,” Madi says. “The cost is worth it because I get to walk in my purpose.”
In 2022, she met and married Grant Troutt in a whirlwind romance. Grant was a sports pastor and church pastor, the son of billionaire Kenny Troutt.
“Faith isn’t so much predicated on feeling or on circumstance,’ Madi told Fox News. “I think when we choose to believe in something bigger than ourselves, we’re choosing to believe that component of life right through the highs and lows of life.”
If you want to know more about a personal relationship with God, go here
About the writer of this article: Clara Czer studies at Lighthouse Christian Academy in Santa Monica.
