‘Bachelor’ Star Madi Prewett Recalls Shocking Experience That Drove Her Away From Church For A Year

Former “Bachelor” star Madi Prewett is opening up about the hurt she experienced at the hands of community members at her local church.

During a recent podcast episode, the 29-year-old explained that the pain caused by church gossip was so profound that it led her to step away from her faith community for a full year.

“I can relate to being really hurt by the church, being judged by the church [and] gossip taking place about me in the church,” Prewett shared on her “Stay True” podcast with Christian author Lisa Harper. “It is really, really hard.”

The reality star later explained that being the subject of church gossip fueled her decision to pull away from the church.

“Honestly, for about a year, I found myself distancing myself from the church,” she told Harper. “[I was] like, listening to sermons but not going and not partaking in small group and fellowship within the body of Christ.”

“I had this moment of realization as I was talking it up with God, and just realizing, ‘OK, I’ve been hurt by the church, but I’ve also been absolutely changed and transformed by the church. I’ve been hurt by people of God, but I’ve also been healed and freed by people of God through the spirit of God,'” she added.

Prewett explained that after a sufficient amount of time away, she realized she was stunting her personal growth.

“I had to grieve and I had to figure that out with the Lord for myself,” she said. “I want anyone listening [to know] the importance of being plugged into a local church, the importance of having community [and] the importance of finding wise counsel. That’s so needed.”

Prewett’s recent episode is the latest in a series of deeply intimate confessions, considering she has also opened up on her podcast about what she calls her “enslavement” to pornography and “sexual sin.”

“I was about 13 years old,” Prewett recalled in a previous episode. “I went over to a friend’s house, and her parents weren’t around, and she turned on this show that was extremely inappropriate.”

Following that, Prewett explained that she fell into a cycle of giving in to “sexual sin,” later adding, “I questioned my worth and my identity.”

The “Bachelor” alum’s story, however, took a turn once she connected with other people and decided she was finished “living in secrecy and … isolation.”

“Thankfully, by the grace of God and by the power of Godly community and people around me, I have been free from porn and m-sturbation for — I don’t even know — 10 years. But that was something that enslaved me and marked me for so long,” she said.

Following her revelation, Prewett’s husband, Grant Troutt, appeared in a separate episode and opened up about his own battle with sin, calling it a “shameful, roller-coaster cycle.”

Troutt, who is also a pastor at a Texas-based church, explained that, like Prewett, after he started taking his struggles “seriously,” he had an experience with God that changed his outlook completely.

“It drove me to this place where I have nothing but [God]. … I just remember walking with Jesus, [and] he was healing me. It was like he was stripping everything in my life because it was drawing me right into the person of Jesus Christ,” he said.

Additionally, during that episode, the couple, who share a daughter born in January 2025, shared their controversial views on parenting while discussing the topic of spanking.

“We will [spank her], on the record, because the Bible clearly says, ‘Folly is bound up in a child, but discipline drives it far away,'” Troutt said, to which Prewett added, “It also specifically says discipline with a rod. … Well, some people could say, ‘You can discipline them with time-outs.’ Hold on, it says with a rod.”

According to Prewett, all spankings would be done in a “very loving way.”

She reflected on her own experience as a child, sharing that when her dad spanked her, she “didn’t enjoy it;” however, she believes that form of discipline taught her an important lesson.

“Praise God that my dad loved me enough to train me into righteousness,” she said.

Prewett’s comments sparked immediate backlash from many listeners, who blasted her for advocating for “corporal punishment.”

“What commandment did I miss?” someone asked, while another questioned, “How is spanking any different than child abuse?”