Madi Prewett, a TV personality who was on season 24 of The Bachelor, and her husband, have come under fire for comments they made about spanking their child. The couple just welcomed their child, Hosanna, on January 20, 2025. Though Hosanna is only 6 months old, Madi’s followers noticed that her husband, Grant Troutt, already seemed excited about the idea of spanking her in the future.
The topic came up during a discussion about disobedience and discipline.
On a July episode of Madi’s Stay True podcast, she and Grant spoke about God’s discipline. They started out talking about “the difference between human discipline and the Lord’s discipline.” Grant stated that while humans might discipline their children “out of emotion,” God doesn’t do that.
“Me and Madi will discipline Hosanna out of emotion at times … God never does that,” he said.
But then he said it will be ‘hilarious’ when they start spanking their daughter.
Grant continued with, “The Lord’s discipline is always off of the heels of disobedience or sin. So think about it, when you have a child, you don’t just discipline them for being good and obeying you, right? Like, if Hosanna obeys us, we’re not like, ‘Come here, girl, come here. Alright, pull ’em down, get that — you know — Mama, get her.'”
He then made a comment that many of Madi’s podcast listeners found scary and disturbing. “Which will be hilarious, by the way, when we start spanking Hosanna,” he said of his 6-month-old daughter.
He promised everyone that they ‘will’ spank their daughter.
On social media, some of Madi’s fans said they were actually “scared” listening to her husband talk about this.
“Gross,” one person commented on YouTube. “This is so gross. She’s not even 1.” Others noticed that Grant seemed excited as he spoke about spanking his daughter in the future, which made it even more “disturbing.”
On the podcast, Grant cited the Bible to justify his stance on spanking. “We will [spank our daughter], on the record, because the Bible clearly says, ‘Folly is bound up in a child, but discipline drives it far away,'” he said.
Madi defended her husband’s comments. She added, “It also specifically says discipline with a rod … Some people could say, ‘You can discipline them with timeouts.’ Hold on, it says with a rod.”
She went on to explain that the spanking will be done in “a very loving way.” She said, “It’s going to be in a very loving way of saying, ‘Hi sweetheart, you know why you’re being disciplined. Mommy does not want to discipline you. Mommy does not enjoy having to spank you. But there are consequences to disobedience.'”
(Former) fans found the comments disgusting.
Some of Madi’s followers told her that the podcast discussion completely changed their perception of her — and not in a good way. “I used to look up to you … this podcast completely changed my mind,” one person wrote on Instagram. “So sad you believe and are preaching that physical discipline is what you’re supposed to do.”
What really bothered lots of people was Grant’s use of the word “hilarious.”
“That’s a pretty radical take and very strange that PHYSICALLY disciplining a CHILD is going to be ‘hilarious,'” a second person wrote on Instagram.
On YouTube, people expressed similar views. “This is so wrong on all levels and I find it very disturbing that your husband takes joy in spanking his daughter in the future,” someone else said. “Very unsettling.” A fourth person called the comments “scary and violent.”
Another podcast listener added: “There is nothing godly about laughing at the thought of harming a child. If your interpretation of faith leads you to justify violence against an infant — especially as entertainment — you are not practicing Christianity, you are distorting it into cruelty.”
