The 5 Most Dramatic Premature Exits in 'Bachelor' History

Madison Prewett is the latest Bachelor hopeful to call it quits before the final rose ceremony

The premise of The Bachelor is pretty straightforward: one man dates 25 women (give or take), eliminating them week after week until two women are left standing, at which point he finally chooses the love of his life and they end up living happily ever after (or so we hope).

So it’s always shocking when a woman decides that she isn’t ready to move on with the Bachelor. After all, he’s the one who’s supposed to be doing the eliminating! Whether they told off their man or had some tearful goodbyes, here are the top five most dramatic premature self-eliminations in Bachelor history.

Madison Prewett Can’t Trust Peter Weber

Madison Prewett was a front-runner for Peter Weber’s season of The Bachelor from the moment she went on the first one-on-one. Madison and Peter hit it off right away, and it was clear by the first part of the season’s dramatic finale that Peter had feelings for her. But Madison could not get over the fact that Weber was intimate with the other women, Hannah Ann Sluss and Victoria Fuller, while on the Fantasy Suite dates. Madison had told Peter before the dates that she would walk away if he slept with the other women as she couldn’t see herself trusting him and accepting a proposal just one week after he had been with them.

Madison ended up attending that week’s rose ceremony and getting a rose, but after meeting Peter’s family (again) she realized that they clearly wanted different things.

“When it comes to marriage, when it comes to faith, when it comes to lifestyle, I mean, I’m just being honest and I just got more insight into like outside of it and how different it all is,” Madison told Peter. “I wouldn’t want you to have to change any of that for someone you want to be with and I wouldn’t want to feel like I have to change any of that for someone I want to be with.” Prewett then left Peter in Australia before he could hand out the final rose.

Cassie Randolph Makes Colton Underwood Jump a Fence

After a hometown date on which her parents questioned just how serious she was about Colton Underwood, Cassie Randolph told the Bachelor that even though she loved him, she was “not in love.” To make matters worse, she delivered their news just before their Fantasy Suite date. Cassie told Colton that she was planning on leaving the show because she wasn’t sure that she could “get there” with him and was hoping to have been sure by that point in the competition. After Cassie left, Colton jumped a whole fence and went missing for a while, sending Bachelor Nation into a tizzy.

Colton ended up breaking things off with his other two finalists, Hannah Godwin and Tayshia Adams, choosing instead to throw caution to the wind and pursue Cassie. The season ended without a proposal or engagement, but the pair are still together.

Andi Dorfman Tells Juan Pablo Galavis, ‘It’s Not Okay’

Andi Dorfman did us all a favor when she finally told Juan “It’s Okay” Pablo Galavis that it was, indeed, “not okay.” She visited Galavis after their Fantasy Suite date and told him that she wasn’t in love with him. He responded with what’s now known in Bachelor Nation as his trademark answer, “It’s okay.” Dorfman stood up for herself and told him, “I want to die if I have to hear ‘it’s okay’ again.” Juan Pablo responded with little to no emotion and told Dorfman that he was just trying to “be honest,” to which Dorfman responded: “There’s a difference between being honest and being an a–hole to be honest.” The moment solidified Dorfman as a fan favorite and she went on to become the Bachelorette.

Sharleen Joynt Leaves Juan Pablo Galavis

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Sharleen Joynt was a frontrunner on Juan Pablo Galavis’ season of The Bachelor, but abruptly left during their one-on-one date because she wasn’t sure that she was feeling it with the former professional soccer player. “If by the end of the day I don’t see this mental connection, I think I’d be wasting both his time and my own,” Sharleen told cameras before her date.

The next day, she went to Juan Pablo’s hotel room and told him that she was going to leave the competition. “The idea of [a] proposal doesn’t seem like something that is possible for me,” she said. “I don’t want to take the spot of someone else who is at that place. I don’t want you to think that I’ve wasted your time.”

Usually, Juan Pablo thinks “it’s okay,” but this time he was visibly emotional about Sherleen leaving. “She was going to have a hometown,” Juan Pablo said while having a good cry about it all.

Sherleen and fellow self-eliminator Andi Dorfman both may have dodged a bullet with Juan Pablo, who it turns out couldn’t even manage to tell winner Nikki Ferrell that he loved her, let alone propose to her.

Ali Fedotowsky Chooses Her Career Over Jake Pavelka

Ali Fedotowsky said that her decision was about being worried that she was throwing away her job and apartment for someone who didn’t love her and would end up leaving her. She told host Chris Harrison, “I think in the end I kind of just believed that if this was really love … the show didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if I physically left. If he loved me, then he would come and find me … and he didn’t.” On The Women Tell All, she admitted that she would’ve chosen love over her career and apologized to Jake Pavelka for leaving. Fedotowsky got her chance to put love first when she became the Bachelorette.