He may be done with Bachelor Nation, but it looks like the most recent lead isn't quite done with his winner. Recently, Matt James and Rachael Kirkconnell, who split while The Bachelor Season 25 was airing on ABC, have seemingly been spotted in New York. The sighting hasn’t been confirmed — the picture submitted to and circulated by Instagram celebrity gossip account DeuxMoi doesn’t actually show either of their faces — but the word’s gotten out, and even Reality Steve is backing up these reports.
“It’s been a while but here’s some news: Matt and Rachael? Yeah, they’re not over,” he tweeted on Tuesday, April 6. “They’re currently in New York together. FYI.”
The news sent some fans of the reality TV show spiraling, while others were, well, less than shocked. After the former-maybe-again couple left the show hand in hand but without a ring on either of their fingers, they went on to continue to grow their relationship in their private lives even as rumors started to circulate that Rachael had a racist past. One TikTok user claimed they’d been bullied for dating Black guys in high school by Rachael’s friend group. Other social media users pointed out questionable Instagram posts and likes from Rachael’s inner circle. Then that Antebellum party photo emerged.
We all know what happened after that...
After tweeting about finding a therapist, deleting all evidence of The Bachelor (minus that damning statement) from his Instagram page, and taking some time for himself, it seems he may be ready to work things out with Rachael after all. And, in hindsight, I guess that's not too shocking. Even after that tense sit-down, he had complimentary things to say about her during his Good Morning America interview.
Despite expressing his frustrations about their issues and sharing insight into why he called their relationship off, he also said she was a "good person" and shared that he was "looking forward" to seeing her educate herself in the ways she outlined in her apology. He did say that there was "a lot of work that needs to be done" before he wanted to revisit the concept of being in a relationship, but maybe he thinks they've got the ball rolling.
Look. Ultimately, it's nobody’s business whether Matt and Rachael decide that love conquers all for their specific relationship. It’s not anyone’s place to dictate that he can’t be with the person he wants to be with to make a point about how hurtful and harmful racism can be on a larger scale, in the same way that it wasn’t anyone’s place to tell Matt that he needs to forgive Rachael and move on because she just made one eensy-weensy lil mistake at a fun party with her friends (is my sarcasm coming through clearly enough here?). That said, I’m not going to weigh in on what I think of all of this. But I will say that I am personally pretty surprised to see it.
I don’t know what’s going to happen between these two. Maybe they’ll strike up a friendship and work to reach a mutual understanding after realizing romance isn’t in the cards. Maybe they’ll go on to get married and have babies and be one of the extremely few Bachelor success stories after traveling the rocky road it took to get there. Maybe they're just enjoying their Clare-and-Dale moment. Or maybe, like some have speculated, they were together all along but coping however they needed to in public.
Who knows? All I can say is that their private lives are private now that they’re no longer airing them out on reality TV… but I’ll certainly be stalking them on Instagram, hunting for updates, just in case.
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Images: ABC