Ali Fedotowsky decides to quit 'The Bachelor' and leave Jake Pavelka

Unsure whether The Bachelor star Jake Pavelka would eventually present her with his final rose, Ali Fedotowsky decided to put her career ahead of reality love during Monday night's The Bachelor: On the Wings of Love broadcast


"I don't know if I made the right choice! It's so hard," Ali sobbed in her departure limousine after telling Jake she had decided to quit the show and return to work to avoid being fired from her job.

"What did I do?  How could I have left him?" the 25-year-old advertising account manager from Williamstown, MA who currently lives in San Francisco, CA asked.

Jake also took Ali's decision hard.

"It hurts like crazy that Ali is gone, I didn't expect to come all of this way to get my heart broken again," he said after Ali's exit.  "I'm trying to find my inner strength, because the easiest thing in the world would be to just give up right now buy I don't think it's in my cards to be devastated and single at the end of this process."


"I have three wonderful women waiting for me and each of them has given their heart to me.  If I give up now I don't deserve to find true love."

The Bachelor: On the Wings of Love's sixth episode began with Jake leaving San Francisco -- the site of the season's prior Rose Ceremony -- to embark on hometown dates with each of his four remaining bachelorettes.

"It's really crazy to me that I have four amazing women left," Jake gushed.  "This journey has been incredible and the final four I care for so much about.  I am so excited to get to these hometown dates because you really get to know a person when they interact with their families in their real settings where they grew up." 

"I'm also seeking approval from these families because to me, there's really a lot at stake -- I could be proposing to one of these women in a couple of weeks and that's a huge thing."

Jake's first hometown date was with Gia Allemand, a 26-year-old swimsuit model from New York, NY.  After meeting him at a marina, Gia took Jake on a boat tour of the city and discussed her poor relationship history -- which has included professional baseball pitcher Carl Pavano.  Jake and Gia then met her family for dinner at a restaurant, during which he got the chance to meet Gia's mother Donna, step-father, step-brother, and half-brother.


During the dinner, Gia's mother asked to spend some private time with Jake.

"I have fallen for four women," Jake told her when asked whether he was in love with all four of his final women.

But despite her concerns, Donna gave her approval to Jake.

"I really feel that he's got this love for you and that you're a really special person.  I just think he loves my girl.  I think he really does," Donna told Gia when her daughter expressed her frustration that Jake has been exhibiting the same hand-holding and other intimate mannerisms with all the remaining women.

"He can't possibly love me right now," Gia replied.  "I'm not asking him to love me right now, I'm just asking for me to be somebody that is different from the others, that's all I want to be."


However Donna remained confident that Jake was in love with Gia, citing her "intuition."

"I liked him and I'm hoping that Jake is the one who heals her heart and shows her what real love is," she said afterwards.  "I'm hoping I met Gia's future husband, I really am."

Afterward, Jake traveled to Williamstown, where he met Ali. 

After meeting Jake at a park and taking him on an unusual and emotional tour of the empty home of her recently deceased grandmother, who she considered to be a second mother, Ali took The Bachelor star to her mom's home, where they had dinner with her mother Beth, older sister and younger brother.

During a private conversation with Beth, Jake asked if he would potentially have her approval to propose to Ali


"I know my daughter well and I can see that she has very strong feelings for you... she's the happiest I've seen her in the long time," Beth replied.  "You seem very genuine, very sincere and this seems very special and in terms of my blessing you certainly have it."

Afterward, Beth reassured Ali -- who was gushing that she would be "so lucky" if Jake were to become her husband -- that she felt good about The Bachelor star.

"I do feel good about him and my intuition -- my gut feelings -- tell me that he's good for you.  I'm with you a 100%, you have my complete support," Beth told her daughter. 

"I'll look forward to planning a wedding," she laughed.

Later, Beth explained that she had been only partially joking.


"My mother's intuition tells me that yes, she will have a ring on her finger.  That's the gut feeling that I have [and] usually my gut doesn't fail me," she said.

Next, Jake had his hometown date with Tenley Molzahn, a 25-year-old college admissions representative from Newberg, OR. 

After meeting him at a local park and having a somewhat awkward conversation in which she got Jake's assurance that he doesn't -- unlike her ex-husband -- allow his parents to plan his life, Tenley took The Bachelor star to the dance studio she grew up in, where she put on a private performance that she was sure Jake -- once again, unlike her ex-husband -- would appreciate.

"It meant the world to me that Jake appreciated the dance that I choreographed for him," Tenley said afterwards.  "The most important thing to me is that my husband and I will be a team and that we'll be a 'we.'"

Later, Jake and Tenley had dinner with her father Rob, mother Beth and sister.

"Tonight I just want to make sure Tenley is truly over her ex-husband [and] her parents will probably have some insight into whether being engaged again and jumping right back into it is the right thing," Jake explained beforehand.


During the visit, Jake asked Tenley's mother if he felt her daughter was ready to "go down that road" again so soon after her failed marriage.

"Tenley is going to have emotional spillovers for a while," she replied.  "But as far as her being ready, if anyone is going to be ready it's Tenley."

"That makes me feel really good!" Jake responded.

"It should," she said.

Before leaving, Jake also asked Tenley's father if he would have his approval to propose to Tenley.

"I feel like I could give my blessing for Tenley to be with a person like you," Rob said.  "I would give you my blessing if it leads to that."


Afterward, Jake seemed convinced that Tenley was ready to remarry.

"I really admire Tenley's dad.  And I know that he wouldn't have given me permission to marry his daughter if Tenley wasn't ready to move forward," he explained.

Jake then embarked on his final hometown date with Vienna Girardi, a 23-year-old marketing representative from Sanford, FL.  After beginning the day with a river boat ride in which they discussed how Vienna's father had not liked either of two men she has previously brought home -- including the ex-husband she had eloped with several years ago -- they had dinner with her family.

During the visit, Vienna's father Vincent told Jake that he expected his daughter to "be treated like a princess" because she "deserves it."

"She'll do the same to you.  You'll come home and the house will be clean and the kids will be raised right... I want her to be happy and I expect her to be treated good," he told Jake. 

"Well, if we do wind up engaged and married she will definitely feel like she's a princess, I assure you that," Jake replied.


"Okay, I just wanted to let you know that.  [That's] how I stand with it," Vincent said.

"I think that's fair enough," Jake said before Vincent added that he had a good feeling about The Bachelor star.

"Vienna's dad made some very strong statements but I know that he's being the protective dad," Jake explained afterwards.  "I know what he's doing and I respect it."

After traveling back to Los Angeles and preparing for the next Rose Ceremony, Jake was surprised by a visit from Ali.

"I have like the most impossible decision to make right now... I just found out that I have to choose between staying here and going back to work," Ali told Jake as she began crying.  "I can't believe I have to make this decision and I haven't mad up my mind.  The reason I'm here coming to you right now is because I wanted to let you know and I'll need you to help me."

"God... so what are you asking me?" Jake asked.


"I don't know!" Ali cried.

"I can say that we have something really special.  Ali, life is about minimizing your regrets and you just have to weigh which one is going to be a bigger regret," Jake said.

"I think you're very lucky and very blessed to have a job but I think I'm very blessed and very lucky to have gotten to meet you, so selfishly I would say, you know, stay here and take a chance on me," he continued.  "But I can't right now guarantee that I'm going to put a ring on your finger, and I can't look you in the eye and tell you that I'm not going to."

"I don't know," Ali replied.  "I just know I have to make a choice and I am so not prepared to make it.  And I thought I would.  I guess at the Rose Ceremony I'll let you know."

"Okay... whatever you decide is okay," Jake responded before Ali left his hotel room and eventually collapsed in tears in the hallway.

"I didn't know that I would fall in love and I'd have to choose between a guy I love and a job I love," Ali explained afterwards.  "It's like the two loves of my life I feel like I have to choose between."


Afterward, Jake elaborated on his own stance on the matter.

"Her job is going to fire her if she stays and she can't decide if she wants to stay and take a chance on me or go back to work," he told The Bachelor host Chris Harrison.  "I don't want her to go home -- if it's right for her to stay I'm going to absolutely do a backflip and if she leaves I'm going to be devastated [and] the love of my life might walk out the door tonight."

"But that's not a decision I can make for her.  I can't bring that burden on me.... if I could look in her eyes and tell her "You are the girl, I want to marry you right now' it'd be a different story but I can't do that, I'm falling in love with more than one woman right now and I don't know where that's going to end up."

"If she decides to stay, again, I'm going to be so excited, but it is going to put [additional] pressure on me [because she quit her job for me]."

However after lining up with the other women for the Rose Ceremony, Ali asked Chris to take her to Jake's deliberation room, where -- following another lengthy period of indecision and emotional conversation -- she eventually told him she was leaving the show to save her advertising job at Facebook.

"Do you know what you're going to say?" Chris asked Ali as he escorted her to Jake.


"I have no idea," she replied.

Once they met, Jake reiterated his position to Ali.

"I know what I want you to do and I know what I want you to tell me, but I want it to be your idea," Jake told Ali.

I keep going back and forth," Ali told Jake.  "My mind was set that I was going to stay.  And then when I saw the other girls I thought I have to go.  And when I'm with you I just want to stay."

"I've never felt like I've met anyone who was as deserving of my love, but the fact of the matter is there are still three other girls downstairs," she added.  "I came into this with everything I wanted in life except for you and there's a chance I could leave it with nothing."

Sensing he was on the verge of losing her, Jake made one final plea.


"Ali, I don't want you to go.  I don't want you to go, we have something really special.  You weren't on the line tonight," he said.  "I don't want you to go.  If you choose to leave I will be devastated."

However unable to secure a commitment that she'd get Jake's final rose, Ali finally made the decision to leave.

"I have to go," she whispered.  "I'm so, so sorry."

"I feel like you're slipping right through my fingers, and I don't know how to stop you," Jake told Ali as he escorted her to the waiting limo and gave her a parting kiss, causing Ali to begin sobbing again.

"I'm so sorry," she replied as Jake closed the limo door and she waved goodbye.

After Ali's exit, Jake and Chris told Gia, Tenley and Vienna that there would be no Rose Ceremony.


"Ladies, as you can see, Ali has left.  So, for the first time ever, there will be no Rose Ceremony," Chris said.

"I'm so glad I don't have to hand roses out," a suddenly cheery Jake told the women. "We're going tomorrow to the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia."

"I realized that I have three amazing women and I'm really excited to continue this journey with them," he explained afterwards.

But based on the next week preview that aired at the end of the episode, Jake still hasn't heard the last from Ali.

"Hey, it's Ali," she was heard saying after Jake answered a phone call in his Saint Lucia hotel room.

The Bachelor: On the Wings of Love's next episode will air Monday, February 15 at 8PM ET/PT on ABC.






About The Author: Steven Rogers