Now that the smoke is clearing from the apocalyptic final episode of Peter Weber’s season of The Bachelor, the franchise’s fandom is still wearily trying to make sense of what we witnessed Tuesday night. Thankfully, new Bachelor hero Hannah Ann Sluss is willing to straighten out this mess.
On “After the Final Rose,” we watched as Peter and Hannah Ann's love story came to a screeching halt thanks to his lingering feelings for Madison Prewett. Even after his family made it clear that Hannah Ann was the one, even after asking Hannah Ann to be his wife — Peter couldn't shake the love that he had for Madison.
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At the finale, Hannah Ann came guns blazing. She didn't bother with her usual pleasantries; the 23-year-old was still fuming at Peter's behaviour and was ready to air out the details of their doomed-from-the-start relationship. Hannah Ann told the room that Peter had played her, ruined one of the most important moments of her life, and wasted her time.
She also surprised Bachelor Nation with shocking details about her engagement, marked by frustration and disappointment. During that time, Hannah Ann shared onstage, there were three women involved in her relationship: herself, Madison, and Peter's ex Hannah Brown.
Hannah Ann appeared on a special episode of the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast right after the show to debrief hosts Rachel Lindsay and Becca Kufrin, clarifying the confusing timeline of her engagement. She and Peter got engaged around Thanksgiving last year, but things really got dicey when season 24 premiered in January. As the show aired, Hannah Ann had a clearer idea of Peter's perspective towards the process, and it was unsettling for her to discover that she had been in the dark about so many things. All the while, Peter downplayed the big moments of the season in a half-hearted attempt to keep Hannah Ann by his side, telling her that what she was seeing was in the past and didn't matter anymore.
According to Hannah Ann, that was also around the time that her fiancé asked if he could contact Hannah Brown for "closure."
"[Peter] tried to convince me to feel comfortable with that," the model said of the bizarre request. "And I was like why? We're engaged."
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It was the first of many red flags for Hannah Ann, and it wasn't too long (just over a week) until Peter asked her to come meet him in California in late January. She told Rachel and Becca on the podcast that she had a feeling something was amiss.
"Right before it happened, I told him, 'hey, if you're wanting to break up, just give me a little bit of a heads up,'" Hannah Ann said on the podcast. "And we had actually talked that morning and said that we were going to work through it, that we weren't going to break up."
But break up they did, blindsiding Hannah Ann completely. Months later, reliving those painful last moments has been a key part in healing her trauma from the experience. "Watching the season back has actually been really helpful for me," she shared. "It's helped me worked through any unresolved feelings I had towards him because I'm able to see how he is consistently indecisive — and who wants to be with that?"