All Eyes On Rachael Kirkconnell

Rachael Kirkconnell is the celebrity crush of a boy who broke my heart, and I’m trying not to hold that against her. As we chat over Zoom, I let that tidbit slip. “Send me his name,” she says. “I'll block him on everything.” In that moment, I understand his crush.

Kirkconnell has been in the public eye since appearing on The Bachelor in 2020, where she won Matt James’ final rose. The duo dated for five years — and allowed fans to third-wheel their relationship via viral food vlogs and travel videos — before James announced their breakup on Instagram in January 2025, shocking his followers and Kirkconnell herself. (At the time, she was at the airport, getting ready to board her flight home from their trip to Japan.) Ten months later, she’s focused on crafting a solo career as a content creator, sharing mostly food and travel videos to her 1.5 million followers across Instagram and TikTok.

Despite her success, Kirkconnell doesn’t know if she’s “ever truly” felt like she made it as a content creator — at least, not yet. “For the first few years, I just was like, ‘Ride this wave while it's here.’ I don't know if I necessarily saw longevity in it until recently. Everyone’s so fickle,” the 29-year-old says. “Within the last year, I've finally been like, ‘OK, I think that there is a space here for me as an individual.’”

Kirkconnell looks fresh-faced in a cozy sweater when she joins our Zoom call from the outskirts of Atlanta, near where she grew up. “There was just so much change in my life this year that I just wanted to be near friends and family,” she says. Next up, she’s toying with the idea of moving to Los Angeles or New York.

I lean towards comfort. But staying within your comfort zone can be debilitating at times.

Before we dig into all the highs and lows of the past year, Kirkconnell warns me that her camera on Zoom follows her around — a disorienting effect called “Center Stage” that she hasn’t been able to turn off. It’s an apt analogy for her life recently: no matter what she does or where she goes, all eyes are tracking her every move, especially when it comes to her dating life. Now, there are some things she wants to clarify.

“People just make stuff up in their head and decide that it's fact. Every week, I see something in my DMs or in my comments — people think that if I had an opportunity to get my previous life or previous relationship back, I would jump at it in a heartbeat. They assume that I'm struggling or weak,” she says. “Just because you have a weak moment or just because you are heartbroken about something, it doesn't mean you're a weak or heartbroken person.”

Still, she isn’t hung up on the past. “It honestly was so easy for me to close that book and move on because of how hurt I was at the end. That was so disrespectful,’” she says. “What has been difficult is starting over — my life now looks very different than it has for the last five years.”

Reflecting on that version of herself from January, there are some words of wisdom she wishes she could impart. “Women have so many people in our lives turning us into apologists. Looking back, I can’t get over how I’d go into an argument, wanting to fix things, and then I’d leave the disagreement, apologizing. I wish I could tell myself, ‘You’re not crazy. It’s OK to stand up for yourself and put your foot down.’ Women are put in a corner like that too much.”

Nearly a year later, she finds the constant headlines about her love life to be confusing. “I went on a dating show, so of course, people are interested in my dating life. I get that, but it's probably one of the least important things to me right now,” she says. “I haven't even been on a single date yet.”

Now, Kirkconnell is focused on defining her new normal. Throughout her five years in the spotlight, she has mostly stuck to what she knows. “I post more about travel and food because that's just what feels comfortable to me,” she says. Some of her most viral videos include a taste-testing vlog of Tsukiji Fish Market in Chūō, Japan, and a recipe recap of her go-to salad. “I lean towards comfort,” Kirkconnell says. “But staying within your comfort zone can be debilitating at times.”

Over the past year, she’s been challenging herself to leave this safety net behind. She’s shared content from her first-ever Coachella (a desert-ready glowy glam look), New York Fashion Week (a GRWM before the Cynthia Rowley show), and F1 in Vegas (a video of her pre-event festivities with Kilian Paris). “I was just focused on getting myself out there — whether it’s traveling, hosting events, or doing things that sound terrifying,” she says. “I forced myself to get out of the house because I couldn’t let myself get into a funk.”

There are so many people that have worked their a**es off for years and years. For me, it feels a little different because it was overnight in a sense.

Take a look at any Instagram photo dump or vlog, and Kirkconnell seems to fit right in, posing alongside popular creators like Kelsey Anderson and Connor Wood — but according to her, she sometimes feels like a “misfit” in the celebrity scene. “You're standing next to someone that you grew up watching on TV, like, ‘This is nuts,’” Kirkconnell says. Getting her start on a reality TV show only adds to the impostor syndrome. “There are so many people that have worked their a**es off for years and years. For me, it feels a little different because it was overnight in a sense.”

By now, Kirkconnell has proven she has staying power — all that’s left is to figure out what to do with it. To start, she’s embracing this era of self-discovery by asking a lot of questions. In October, she opened up on Hallie Batchelder’s Extra Dirty podcast about being demisexual, where you only feel sexual attraction after developing an emotional bond. “I remember thinking, ‘Is there something wrong with me or am I weird?’ I guess I was questioning my sexuality, seeing how other women date and just hookup culture in every TV show.”

The idea of just meeting someone and even making out with them, I'm like, ‘That's gross.’

Kirkconnell prefers to take her time getting to know someone. “The idea of just meeting someone and even making out with them, I'm like, ‘That's gross,’” she adds. She’s quick to clarify that she’s not “against hookup culture” for other people (“Do whatever you want”) — she just has never been into it and is starting to question why.

“Maybe that's why dating is hard for me right now, and I feel weird about it — because I can't figure it out yet,” Kirkconnell says. There’s also the added pressure of a date’s expectations. “I feel stressed about someone expecting to get in bed with me very quickly. I need a man to respect me enough to be able to wait and get to know me first. I don't think there are a lot of guys willing to do that.”

Despite the perpetual questions about her dating life, Kirkconnell’s gotten good at tuning out the noise. “You have the world telling you that you're already past your prime. You got to freeze your eggs, you got to find a man, you got to get married, you got to have kids,” she says. “While I'm not against any of those things, at the same time, I don't know if that's in the cards for me. None of us do until we have it. Nothing's guaranteed, I guess — even a husband.”

She won’t reveal much about what’s to come — partially because the possibilities are endless — but she does share what she’s hoping to find. “Right now, I'm manifesting a deeper connection within myself,” she says. “I don't know what my life is going to look like, but what do I want it to look like? I'm still trying to figure that out.”