“The Bachelor” alum Rachael Kirkconnell was blindsided by ex-boyfriend Matt James publicly announcing their breakup.
“He didn’t even text me to give me a warning saying, ‘Hey, I’m posting this,’” Kirkconnell claimed during the Wednesday, Jan. 29, episode of Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast. “It just hurt to know that’s how my friends found out, and my family and my little sister. I didn’t get to talk to them about it or grieve privately for, like, a day.”
When James released the Instagram statement about their split two weeks ago, Kirkconnell was on a flight.
“Literally the plane is taking off and I see his post, and that’s it,” Kirkconnell recalled. “I don’t have any service or anything for the next 12 hours, so I’m freaking out because [I] just got broken up with, and now, a few hours later, it’s for the whole world to see and I’m still trying to process it.”
The reality TV personality added that she’s “still in shock” about the breakup.
“I think that’s why I didn’t say anything. Still haven’t made a statement or anything because I’m processing this just like everyone else is,” she said.
Kirkconnell and James met during season 25 of ‘”The Bachelor,” which aired in 2021. James gave Kirkconnell his final rose, but the pair split while the season was still airing after photos resurfaced of Kirkconnell at an “Old South”-themed party in college.
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Kirkconnell apologized for her ignorance about how such events are racially insensitive, noting in an Instagram statement that “my ignorance was racist.” She and James reconnected in the spring of 2021.
Kirkconnell said on Wednesday that she thought she and James were “on the same page” about the future until their recent split.
“We talked about rings, he told me a few months ago to start saving some things, picking things out,” she told Cooper.
While James’ decision came as a surprise, the former Bachelor did give Kirkconnell a reason for ending their relationship.
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“He said that at the end of the day there were just qualities about me that he worries about having in a wife,” Kirkconnell explained. “There are things that we aren’t compatible with, and the whole accountability and saying sorry and all that was really the main thing. … [He] had this realization that, ‘I should want to propose to you by this time. Like, at this point in our relationship, I should be wanting those things and I should be ready for that. But I’m not.’”
Kirkconnell added that James’ words were “a lot” to process, as he’d been telling her “the opposite” a “few days before.”
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