Matt James claims that he didn’t have sex in The Bachelor Fantasy Suites with any of his three finalists.
He said in a news story interview published by The Wall Street Journal that he did not have sex with any of the three finalists of his season, Rachael Kirkconnell, Bri Springs, and Michelle Young.
Instead, Matt spent time alone with the women, trying to get to know them better.
“I can’t speak for anybody but myself, but I think the women appreciated it,” he explained.
“Because I did learn things about them that I hadn’t gathered — that I don’t think I would have learned if I hadn’t used that time to really dive deeper into something that they might not have been comfortable talking about on camera,” Matt admitted.
He also spoke of his Bachelor experience and his current relationship status with Rachael Kirkconnell.
Rachael confirmed the couple is back together
Rachael confirmed to the magazine via email that she and Matt had reconciled. She said to WSJ that the couple is appreciative of their privacy moving forward and can deal with their relationship without the prying eyes of ABC’s cameras watching their every move.
In the Season 25 finale, Matt and Rachael did not get engaged. Rather, the couple chose to continue to explore their feelings for one another. This arrangement lasted two months until a Reddit user posted racially sensitive photos of Rachael in antebellum clothing as she attended a college fraternity party.
The couple split shortly after. They faced one another during The Bachelor: After the Final Rose, where Matt’s silence spoke volumes about his conflicted feelings toward the woman he professed to love.
“If you don’t understand that something like that is problematic in 2018, there’s a lot of me that you won’t understand,” Matt shared to ATFR host Emmanuel Acho.
Matt admitted he stayed closed-off during filming
Matt admitted there was a lot about himself he did not reveal during the filming of his season.
“What was most important to me was that people [on the show] understood where I came from and who I was so that they could make an informed decision for themselves. If they wanted to be with someone like me, who had this quote-unquote baggage because that’s what I saw it as initially,” Matt said of his deep personality and the emotional issues that came from his childhood.
“It wasn’t until I became more comfortable with who I was as a man, as a Black man, as a brother and a son, that it just became more of my story,” the former reality show lead said.
The Bachelor is currently on hiatus.