Bachelor’s Matt James Deletes IG After Rachael Kirkconnell Split
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Clean slate. Matt James deleted all the photos from his Instagram on Friday, March 19.
The Bachelor star, 29, did not address his decision to remove all his photos from his account. James deleted snaps from his time on the ABC reality show, as well as some from years prior.
His social media activity came amid concern for his well-being following his messy Bachelor season 25 finale split from Rachael Kirkconnell. The 24-year-old Georgia native came under fire before the episode aired amid accusations of past racist behavior. One day after the finale aired, James tweeted, “Google Therapist Near me.”
His brother, John the Scorpio, delivered an update on Matt during Friday’s episode of the “Higher Learning” podcast, hosted by Rachel Lindsay and Van Lathan. “I called him for that very same reason just to see where his head was at,” John said of the tweet. “He’s in a good spot. He’s good. People don’t need to worry about Matt.”
The reality TV personality’s brother added, “It’s kind of like he’s going through a detox phase, of all the stuff that he was dealing with ABC and being in the spotlight and doing interviews. He’s in a better place.”
Days after the finale aired, Matt was the target of racist bullying online for breaking up with Kirkconnell over her racist controversy. She defended him, assuring supporters that’s not what she wanted.
“I am taken aback by what I’ve seen tonight. If you think that attacking a person I care about with racist insults is what I would ever want, you haven’t been listening,” she wrote via her Instagram Story on Wednesday, March 17. “Some of the things I’ve seen being said to and about Matt are repulsive. I respect the decisions that Matt has had to make during this experience. If you are directing hate towards him, please stop. Recognize someone’s humanity and think about the impact your words have.”
The former football player chose Kirkconnell over Michelle Young during the Monday, March 15, finale of The Bachelor.
During After the Final Rose, viewers found out the pair had called it quits one month earlier. Matt admitted to host Emmanuel Acho that the controversy surrounding Kirkconnell, including resurfaced photos of her at an “Old South”-themed party at a plantation in 2018, played a large part in the split.
“As someone who grew up in the South, it takes me to a place that I don’t often like to think about. I wasn’t OK. It was in that moment and the conversation that I had, that Rachael might not understand what it means to be Black in America,” Matt said during the special. “It’s heartbreaking. If you don’t understand that something like that is problematic in 2018, there’s a lot of me that you won’t understand. It’s as simple as that. … You know what was a long time ago? Plantations.”
Kirkconnell apologized via social media more than once after the scandal broke. She called Matt the “love of my life” during After the Final Rose.
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