Some fans were feeling a bit of deja vu after Monday night's 'Bachelor.'
Some Bachelor fans were feeling a bit of deja vu when Madison Prewett gave Peter Weber an ultimatum on Monday night's episode of the ABC dating series, telling him that she wouldn't feel OK moving forward if he had slept with any other women in the fantasy suite.
The declaration came about six months after Bachelorette contestant Luke Parker made a similar statement on Hannah Brown's season last summer -- prompting viewers to compare the two on social media. While speaking with ET's Lauren Zima on Roses & Rose on Tuesday, Bachelor host Chris Harrison agreed that both Madison and Parker issued ultimatums, but said there's a clear difference between the situations.
"If you wanna just say they both gave ultimatums, that's fine. They both did," he shared. "Now the way Luke P. got to that point, [it was] misogynistic, slut-shaming. There were things that Luke P. did that led him to already be in a bad light before he got to the ultimatum that made it a lot more negative."
"But at the end of the day, they both stood by their faith, they both gave people ultimatums," Harrison added.
Madison had told Peter about her "standards" for him on Monday night's episode before the cast had traveled to Australia for fantasy suite week. Peter had his first overnight dates with Hannah Ann and Victoria F., and when he finally had his date with Madison, he admitted he had been intimate. On the same date, Madison, who had previously shared with Peter how important her Christian faith was to her, also shared that she is saving herself for marriage.
"It’s an ultimatum," Harrison said, despite Madison's hesitation to label it as such. "When you say, 'If you don’t do this, this will happen,’ that literally is the definition of an ultimatum. Whether you say it’s an ultimatum or not, it is. So, she put an ultimatum on the table, which by the way, is fine! If that’s your faith, if that’s your way of life, that’s fine."
On The Bachelorette, Luke also received the last fantasy suite date and told Hannah that because of his faith -- and his expectations for her faith as well -- he would want to leave if she had sex with any of the other men. Though he wasn't a virgin (Luke explained early on in the season that he was quite sexually active during his college years, but had since found God and decided to be abstinent), Luke said he wanted the marriage bed to remain pure, and approached the conversation with Hannah in a demeaning and shaming way. She sent him home, delivering her famous line, "I have had sex, and Jesus still loves me." (Hannah later revealed that she had been intimate with Peter).
"There is a similarity there," Harrison said of the situations, "but obviously I don't think you can compare people."
"An ultimatum does not have a negative connotation in and of itself. It's not a bad thing," he shared. "I have literally heard nobody say it's a bad thing Madison standing by her faith -- it is her body, her choice. Nobody's arguing that. The same thing with Luke P. -- you can't argue that."
The difference, for Harrison, lies in the delivery and the previous problematic comments Luke had made before his ultimatum. But he does think that the timing of Madison's ultimatum put Peter in a "tough spot."
"It put Peter in a pretty tough situation because he had already gone to hometowns, he had already gone through fantasy suites as far as picking who was going, so we're getting down to the nitty-gritty. This is crunch time, and so to find out some major information that can impact your life this week, it was really difficult," explained the host.
"It's just the timing, the situation to put Peter in because it's not just her living in a bubble," Harrison added. "She's in a relationship and in any relationship, there should be communication."
Another question fans had was why Madison thought she could expect Peter to not explore his relationships physically, given the nature of the show, and especially with what viewers -- and Madison -- knew about his time in the fantasy suite with Hannah.
"Maybe she thought this was gonna be different. Maybe she thought Peter would be different," Harrison suggested. "But knowing that he was the windmill guy, you would think..."
"Maybe she thought he got it out of his system and from then on he'd be good and, like Sean Lowe, he'd be born again," he continued. "But you can't put that toothpaste back in the tube."
The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC. See more in the video below.
RELATED CONTENT:
