The Bachelor star Rachael Kirkconnell reveals why Matt James ended their relationship: ‘I’m mad’
The Bachelor alum Rachael Kirkconnell said she was blindsided when her boyfriend of four years, Matt James, broke up with her while they were on holiday together in Tokyo.
The reality TV star appeared on the Call Her Daddy podcast to share her version of events after James issued a shock statement on 16 January announcing that they had split.
During the episode, Kirkconnell claimed that the pair had been discussing picking out an engagement ring and having children in the months before he broke up with her, and that James shared his breakup statement without consulting her while she was at the airport to return home days after the split.
In her first time speaking about the breakup publicly, Kirkconnell told Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper that in the days leading up to the breakup, she felt that things were tense between herself and James and that they were bickering over dinner.
Speaking about the day of the breakup, she said that the pair were travelling to a restaurant when he “snapped” at her.
“So we were on the way to get some food and I was scrolling through my phone, showing him a bunch of videos. I guess I was bothering him. I was annoying him. … [He] kind of snapped at me to where I got mad at him because I was like, ‘You know, even if I’m annoying you like, don’t treat me like that.’ And so then it seemed like we were both kind of mad at each other or annoyed with each other.”
When they got back to the hotel, Kirkconnell said that James raised his concerns about their long-term compatibility.
“It was definitely out of nowhere,” Kirkconnell said. “He said that at the end of the day, there were just qualities about me that he worries about having in a wife.
“At the end of the day, there are things that we aren’t compatible with and the whole accountability and saying sorry and all that was really the main thing. It was just one of those things where he just had this realisation 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.’”
Kirkconnell grew emotional as she explained she felt thrown by James’s decision, claiming she had been “hearing the opposite” in previous months when they had casually discussed “picking out rings”, wedding plans and the possibility of having children.
“We talked about rings, he told me a few months ago to start saving some things, picking things out,” she said. “That felt like such a green flag to me. I felt like that was a good sign. I don’t know, when he started talking about kids and picking out a ring, wedding food and where we want the wedding. I don’t know if there were any actions following those things but when you’re told these things you just wanna hold on to them,” she said.
Kirkconnell admitted she was shocked when James posted his breakup announcement without warning while she was at the airport to travel home.
“I was freaking out. I just got broken up with and now a few hours later, it was out for the whole world to see. My phone was blowing up.”
“When I step back, I’m mad,” she said. “He should not have done that to me after four years. He didn’t even text me to give me a warning, like, saying, ‘Hey, I’m posting this.’”
Kirkconnell admitted that the pair have had contact since the breakup and James called her at 1 am “four or five days” after his breakup post and has tried to check in on her.
“I confronted him about the post. … And that’s when he was like yeah, ‘I fully admit that I could have handled this a lot better.’ And he apologised.”
“It really sucks to look back at how things ended for us. It’s heartbreaking.”
The pair met and fell in love on the 25th season of the ABC dating show The Bachelor. They had a tumultuous start to their relationship when Kirkconnell was embroiled in a racism controversy after pictures of her at an antebellum plantation-themed party in 2018 surfaced online.
At the time, The Bachelor host Chris Harrison defended Kirkconnell against the racism controversy, which ultimately led to his exit from The Bachelor franchise in June 2021 after 20 years with ABC. James and Kirkconnell split, but were spotted together a month later and rekindled their relationship.
Since they repaired their relationship, the couple had been sharing loved-up pictures of their travels together, which meant that their January 2025 split came as a shock to fans – and to Kirkconnell who has said she was blindsided.
