Rachael Kirkconnell Says She’s ‘Still in Total Shock’ Two Weeks After Witnessing Matt James’ Breakup Announcement on an Airplane

James and Kirkconnell dated for four years prior to their shocking breakup. They left his season of The Bachelor as a couple in 2020, but when photos of her attending an antebellum plantation-themed party surfaced online, controversy arose and they separated. They rekindled their relationship weeks later and had seemed on the verge of a potential engagement.

Kirkconnell said on Call Her Daddy that amid their split, James told her, “There were just qualities about me that he worries about having in a wife. Like 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.”