Golden Bachelor’s Mel Makes Shocking Elimination in ‘Toughest’ Rose Ceremony Before Finale: ‘My Heart Doesn’t Feel Okay’

Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Golden Bachelor week 6

Mel Owens was forced to make a heart-wrenching decision at the end of The Golden Bachelor week 6.

In the last rose ceremony before the finale, Mel, 66, had to choose which two women he could see himself proposing to as his journey nears the end. The shocking elimination came after he visited the hometowns of the remaining three contenders — Peg, 62, Debbie, 65, and Cindy, 60 — who all offered a glimpse into their lives outside of the show.

“They’re all great women, beautiful, smart, funny,” Mel said at the beginning of the episode. “It’s gonna be a difficult decision, so I’m not taking this lightly at all.”

His first stop was in Las Vegas, Nevada, where Peg, a retired firefighter and bomb tech, gave him a tour of her old fire house and later introduced him to her family. While Peg said that she could see herself getting engaged in the coming weeks, her daughter, Dakota, wasn’t so sure.

“Are you in love with my mom?” Dakota asked Mel during a private conversation, to which he responded: “No, I’m not in love with your mom yet, because I don’t know. I’m not in that stage yet.”

As he continued to hesitate about being ready to be engaged, Dakota admitted that she didn’t feel “at ease.”

“Mel’s answers are not necessarily what I needed to hear for where they’re at in this process nor do I think that that’s what my mom deserves,” she told cameras. “I wish he was more sure about where his feelings are at with my mom. That worries me. So yeah, I’m a little skeptical.”

When it came time for Cindy’s hometown date in Austin, Texas, she was also left questioning Mel’s feelings after confessing she was falling in love and he was unable to reciprocate the sentiment.

“I’m not there yet,” he explained. “I don’t use the word love lightly. I’ve only been in love once in my life, and I divorced. It hurt. So, it’s complicated. There’s three great women, they’re all deserving, and I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Debbie’s hometown date was a particularly emotional one, as she decided to share a complicated and tragic experience from her past with Mel that had been “looming” over her. She took him to Red Rocks Park in Denver, Colorado, where she opened up about the reason she hasn’t brought a partner home to meet her family in 14 years.

“I know I mentioned a few times when I was last in love that it was a tragic ending,” she began. “I didn’t really go into it any further because the relationship, well, you know, I was with him for a couple years. Right before I was going to turn 51, I knew he was gonna propose, but I knew he had a little bit of depression. But he hid a lot from me, and within maybe six months, I just started seeing this behavior, and it was pretty heavy.”

“I had tried breaking up with him a couple times, but I could never, because I loved him so much,” she continued. “It was like, I couldn’t live with him, I couldn’t live without him. I was completely conflicted, and finally, we saw his therapist together, and she gave me strength to walk away. And, like, two weeks later, the horrible thing is, he took his life, and it altered me forever.”

Debbie then said she “had to work through a lot of pain” and “guilt” for a decade before she felt ready to date again. Mel later met her family, and when it was time to leave, Debbie told him that he would “be a welcome member of our family” as he called their future “bright.”

“My feelings have grown so much for Mel today. It’s tough to say goodbye knowing that the next time I see him, it might be the last,” she admitted before adding: “I never thought I would have these feelings for any man again because I had gone through hell and back, and if he doesn’t choose me, I would be extraordinarily devastated.”

At the end of the week, Mel struggled to navigate his feelings for each woman. 

“By far this is going to be the toughest rose ceremony, because each one of them would be great,” he acknowledged. “I think they all deserve the rose, and that’s where the anxiousness and the emotions come in.”

Ultimately, he decided to send Debbie home, leaving both of them questioning the decision.

“Debbie is genuine, and she deserves love,” he said. “To say goodbye is very, very difficult. My heart doesn’t feel okay with it. It just doesn’t.”

“Sorry that it had to end this way,” he told her. “You touched my heart in more ways than one.”

When Debbie got into the car, she sobbed. “I put myself out there in such a giant way, only to have yet another disappointment. It’s beyond painful.”

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The Golden Bachelor airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on ABC, and can be streamed the next day on Hulu.