Matt James was the lead on the 25th season of The Bachelor, and the real estate broker found love with one of the show’s contestants, Rachael Kirkconnell. While he didn’t end the show with an engagement, he gave his final rose to Rachael Kirkconnell and they left The Bachelor as a couple.

They broke up when the show was airing in early 2021 after racially insensitive photos of Kirkconnell emerged on social media. Their split was short-lived, however, as they reconciled a few months later and have been going strong ever since.

What happened with Matt James and Rachael Kirkconnell?

James and Kirkconnell are still together and have been together since their reconciliation in 2021. In July 2023, rumors of a split began circulating as fans noticed they were not present in each other’s social media posts, but the couple shut down the speculation on July 18, 2023. “I think everybody needs to take a break from social media,” James told E! News. “Our lives are lived so much in front of our phones that when anybody steps out of being on their phone 24/7, people think it’s the end of the world. But it’s honestly the best time for people to rejuvenate and to enjoy summer.”

Kirkconnell spoke to the publication as well and said they wanted to be able to spend time together as a couple as well as separately. “I hope that people can love us both as a couple but also individually and support things that we do together and also things that we do on our own,” she shared. “Cause I think that’s where a lot of people freak out about is that they’re not seeing us together 24/7.”

Both James and Kirkconnell said they wanted to keep some aspects of their relationship private and “special” to them. “I love sharing everything that we can with everyone who supports us, any kind of fans out there,” Kirkconnell told the publication. “But you know at the end of the day, it is just us two in this relationship, and I think we just want to keep that as special as we can.”

Matt James and Rachael Kirkconnell briefly split in 2021 after racially insensitive photos of Kirkconnell began circulating online

Kirkconnell and James’ relationship struggled early on as racially insensitive photos of Kirkconnell surfaced on social media while the season was still airing. Kirkconnell took to social media to apologize for her past behavior, which included attending an antebellum plantation-themed ball. She also urged people to not defend her actions and condemned those who told her she’d done nothing wrong.

“Things will never change if we don’t all work together in working towards this racial progress and this unity that we want,” she said in an Instagram video. “If you are in my comments or defending me anywhere telling people that I did nothing wrong, that there’s nothing to be hurt about, there’s nothing to be angry about or offended about, please stop. That’s not our place to tell people what they can and can’t be offended about. That’s wrong and that’s part of the problem.”

The “After the Final Rose” special episode of The Bachelor season 25, which aired in March 2021, saw James and Kirkconnell reveal that they’d split up following the controversy. James said he felt like he needed to take a step back and Kirkconnell posted on Instagram that she respected his decision. Two months later, however, James confirmed that the couple was back together and that Kirkconnell gave him the push he needed to recommit.

“She was like, ‘If you’re going to make this work, let’s do it,'” he recounted on the Pomp podcast. “‘But, if you’re not going to make it work, I’m going to let you do your own thing.’ That’s really all I needed. It was an ultimatum that I needed.” James pointed out that Kirkconnell’s comments made him realize that he hadn’t been honoring his commitment to her to work on their relationship.

Are Matt James and Rachael Kirkconnell engaged?

Many contestants who find love on The Bachelor or The Bachelorette end up engaged at the season finale, but James was one of the leads who opted not to go down on a knee despite giving Kirkconnell his final rose. Although that was over two years ago, the couple is still not engaged and James said they feel “no pressure” to tie the knot.

“We do things in our relationship for each other,” the North Carolina native told PEOPLE in July 2023. “We like to share that with people because they’ve come along on our long journey together. There’s no pressure. Everything that we do is for one another, and that, I think, is what makes our relationship work so well.”

In fact, James said he doesn’t get frustrated by fans’ chatter about his relationship because he knows it’s normal for speculation to occur, he told US Weekly. He admitted that he and Kirkconnell post a lot about their lives together, so it’s normal that fans want to stay in the loop on all aspects of their lives.

Matt James’ mother worries about the couple when they don’t visit her together

It’s not just fans who get worried about the state of James and Kirkconnell’s relationship when the couple fails to post together for some time. The Dancing with the Stars alum revealed that his mother, Patty James, will ask him about their relationship if he visits her on his own. “I’ll come home and if Rachael’s not with me, my mom’s like, ‘What’s wrong? Where’s Rachael?’” he told US Weekly. “I’m like, ‘She had to go home to see her family!’ She has her mom and her dad and brother and sister [in Atlanta].”

James is very close with his mother, who might become a Bachelor Nation star herself. In June 2023, Page Six reported that a show insider revealed that Patty James was in talks with producers to appear on The Golden Bachelor, the show’s spin-off for seniors set to premiere in the fall of 2023 with Gerry Turner as its first lead.

James and Kirkconnell revealed that they don’t know if James’ mother will be on the show but that they would both be tuning in and were really excited for Turner. Kirkconnell gushed that Turner seemed like a “perfect” star for the franchise and was rooting for him, then told US Weekly that she was also rooting for love for Patty James “whether on TV or off.”

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