Desiree Hartsock Departs 'The Bachelor' After Hometown Date Drama

Desiree Hartsock Departs 'The Bachelor' After Hometown Date Drama

Sean Lowe narrowed his search for love on Monday's episode of "The Bachelor," sending home contestant Desiree Hartsock after going on hometown dates with the four remaining women vying for his heart.

He met their families and took questions from four sets of parents. In each case, he told the parents of Lindsay Yenter, AshLee Frazier, Desiree Hartsock and Catherine Guidice that their daughters were special to him.

There was some nervousness when Lowe met each family for the first time. Two of the dates - with Frazier's family in Houston and Yenter's family in Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. - went fairly smoothly and Lowe felt reassured. On his visit with Guidice's family in Seattle, her sisters' comments about her commitment and temperament caused him to have doubts.

"I didn't anticipate them being so overly protective," Guidice told " Good Morning America." "I felt like I was defending my relationship."

But things seemed to go very wrong when Lowe, an insurance agent from Dallas, met Desiree Hartsock's family in Los Angeles. It seemed there would be a problem when Hartsock's ex-boyfriend showed up at her house and professed his love for her, but it turned out to be a prank she was playing on Lowe to repay him for an earlier trick he played on her. The purported boyfriend was an actor.

Hartsock's brother became the real source of tension during the family visit. Identified in the on-screen caption as Nathan, he accused Lowe of not fully returning his sister's feelings.

"I think you are just a playboy," Hartsock's brother told Lowe.

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"I'm crazy about your sister," Lowe, 29, explained in an attempt at reassurance, but Hartsock's brother quickly replied: "You're crazy about a lot of girls, right? I think you're just a playboy. I think you're just having fun with the circumstances … ."

Lowe denied the accusation, and later said in on-camera confessional that he was upset about Hartsock's brother's comments because they called his integrity into question.

During the rose ceremony at the mansion where much of the show is filmed, Hartsock asked Lowe to speak privately to him and apologized for her brother's behavior during their meeting.

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"I just don't know how you felt because I know that it was uncalled for …," she said of her brother's behavior, which she also characterized as rude.

Lowe told her it wasn't her fault. "I get it. It's okay," he said.

He first chose Frazier to return next week, then Yenter, and while he acknowledged struggling between Hartsock and Guidice, he gave Guidice the final rose and sent Hartsock home.

On her way to the car that would take her away, Hartsock told him she'd believed he'd made a mistake. He agreed that he might have.

Monday's episode will show Lowe and the three remaining women in Thailand. Lowe will cut one of them from the ABC show.

"I would not be surprised if I fell in love in Thailand with Sean," Guidice told "GMA."