We all know that mothers love their sons and want the best for them. Still, that doesn't mean that mothers have the right to dictate the choices their grown sons make, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. One person who desperately needs that lesson in parenting is The Bachelor star Peter Weber's mom, Barbara. Tuesday night, on the finale of The Bachelor, she did not come to play nice. In fact, she flat out humiliated her son and his girlfriend on national television all because she didn't like his final pick.
While we can always count on host Chris Harrison to let us know we're in for the most dramatic ending ever, this really was the most dramatic final episode, but not in a good way. Watching Peter's mom put her rage on full display was downright brutal. Maddie and Peter both tried to keep their cool, but WOO-BOY. It was rough. It was also incredibly manipulative behavior to put on such a show to get what she wanted. It's pretty much exactly the kind of thing mothers-in-law from hll, or in this case, future mothers-in-law from hll, get called out for from time to time. However, this was next level. And it was on live TV.
Barb's only defense is really that this season was incredibly complicated for a few reasons. But hello? This is reality TV romance we're talking about. It's always going to be complicated when one guy is dating 30 women and feelings are all over the place. Still, this was a particularly rocky road.
Peter found himself completely in love with two women, Madison and Hannah Ann. Hannah Ann was all in. She loved Peter and gushed to his family about how much she adored him. Seeing how much she truly loved their son, Peter's mom and dad instantly hit it off with Hannah Ann. The entire family, especially Barbara, made it clear to Peter that she was their pick.
Peter wasn't sure, though. He was feeling incredibly torn because he was also in love with Madison, whom he lovingly calls "Maddie." But Maddie was a little more complicated. She comes from a very religious family and had told Peter that it would be hard for her to continue the journey with him if he slept with the other women. Peter was unsure of what to do, but because he's more spiritual than religious and finds intimacy to be an important part of forming relationships, he did sleep with at least one of the other women.
When he told Maddie he had been intimate with other women on the show, it was devastating for her. Now, a lot of people have attacked Maddie for that, and it's clear that's where a lot of the vitriol from his family comes in. But even if it wasn't right to present Peter with an ultimatum of sorts, she still has every right to feel disgusted by the thought of the person she's falling in love with sleeping with another woman. She was having an incredibly hard time with all of it, and it made her question the relationship. So Maddie ended up leaving before the final rose was given out.
That left Peter in a rough spot. It was clear to onlookers that he was deeply in love with Maddie and utterly devastated that she left. It was also clear that Maddie only left because Peter was still in another relationship, and she felt she was compromising her morals by staying with him when he had, in fact, done what she'd told him would hurt her and slept with other women. Meanwhile, Peter still had an amazing woman left whom he'd already told that he was also in love with — the lovely Hannah Ann.
Peter was obviously feeling incredible pressure from his family to choose Hannah Ann. Despite his complicated feelings, he ended up proposing to her. Of course, that quickly fell apart because he couldn't get Maddie off his mind. The two broke up later, and Hannah Ann pretty much tore him apart on the finale in front of a live audience. He apologized profusely, saying he was incredibly conflicted and had hoped he could give his whole heart to her, but it didn't pan out that way.
Chris Harrison, being the sneaky host that he is, went to get Maddie and told her what had happened. She admitted that life had been hard since she'd left the show, and she was still madly in love with Peter. She went to see him and it seemed like the couple might get their happily ever after. It had obviously been an incredibly tough journey, but all is fair in love and war, right?
Well, not according to mama Barb.
Peter's mom sat in the audience last night and scrunched her face up, rolled her eyes, and basically acted like she had no idea there was a camera on her face the entire time. When Maddie walked out onstage, she whispered to her family and scowled. Then when Chris gave his mom time to talk, she launched into a bunch of absurd reasons why her family didn't click with Maddie. One of them being that when she and Peter were having an intense talk about whether or not the couple could make things work, she made the family who was inside waiting to meet her wait for a very long time.
Barbara said some incredibly harsh words, and it had the audience on pins and needles. She railed into Peter for making the decision he made, even as he sat there teary-eyed, pleading with her to stop. “He’s gonna fail to succeed,” Barb said before an audience who booed and gasped. She also added that everyone — his friends and entire family — believe it won't work out. Wow … way to rock that supportive mom role, Barbara.
“All I know is I love Madison,” Peter said back. "And that should be enough."
The finale was so hard to watch, because you could tell how in love Peter and Maddie truly are, but everyone knows that when you marry someone, you marry their family. It has many people wondering how it could possibly work out when Peter's family has made such a huge ordeal out of hating the woman he chose. How could Madison ever face them? How could Peter look his family in the eyes after how they treated the woman he loves like that?
Clearly, this pair has an uphill battle in front of them. Perhaps love can conquer all, but with a mother like Barb in the mix, the two have their work cut out for them.
