As Rachael Kirkconnell continues to make headlines, the controversial Bachelor contestant’s household, together with mother and father Darrell and Kim Kirkconnell, will meet Matt James on the Monday, February 22, episode of The Bachelor.
The 24-year-old graphic designer got here beneath hearth following the January 4 premiere of season 25 when a TikTok person accused her of being racist in highschool. Screenshots of Instagram pictures that Rachael “favored” that includes her buddies smiling in entrance of Accomplice flags subsequently surfaced by way of social media.
In line with Reddit customers, Rachael’s mom defended her daughter on the time by way of her since-deleted Instagram account.
“We’re in opposition to the Accomplice flag. I simply don’t perceive how one can say she or anybody in her household agrees with the Accomplice flag as a result of she ‘favored’ a pic of her buddy,” Kim reportedly wrote, claiming the TikTok person didn’t even go to Rachael’s highschool. “The ‘like’ had nothing to do together with her liking the Accomplice flag. We don’t assist racism of any form. It’s 100% unsuitable. All individuals needs to be handled pretty and with dignity, love and kindness.”
Matt, for his half, beforehand warned Bachelor Nation that “rumors are darkish and nasty and might wreck individuals’s lives” and informed Leisure Tonight on February 2 that he hoped Rachael “can have her time to talk on that.”
Rachael later made headlines for pictures of her at an Antebellum-themed fraternity formal on a Georgia plantation in 2018. After Chris Harrison was accused of defending her previous actions throughout an interview with Rachel Lindsay on Additional, Rachael broke her silence on the controversy.
“Whereas there have been rumors circulating, there have additionally been truths which have come to mild that I want to handle. I hear you, and I’m right here to say I used to be unsuitable,” she wrote on February 11. “At one level, I didn’t acknowledge how offensive and racist my actions have been, however that doesn’t excuse them. My age or when it occurred doesn’t excuse something. They don’t seem to be acceptable or okay in any sense. I used to be ignorant, however my ignorance was racist.”
Rachael continued: “I’m sorry to the communities and people that my actions harmed and offended. I’m ashamed about my lack of schooling, however it’s nobody’s duty to coach me. I’m studying and can proceed to learn to be antiracist, as a result of it’s vital to talk up within the second and never after you’re referred to as out. In case you are an individual who doesn’t perceive the offense in query, I urge you to study from my errors and encourage you to make use of them as a teachable second.”
After Harrison’s Additional interview, the host introduced that he wouldn’t be featured on the upcoming stay After the Last Rose taping. Whereas Matt shared assist for the season 13 Bachelorette amid the scandal, he beforehand opened as much as Us Weekly about how he was falling in love with Rachael after their first one-on-one date.
“Evening one, what she selected to make use of her time with me to discuss was very intentional. And it wasn’t one thing that wasn’t going to progress our relationship,” he stated on Us’ “Right here for the Proper Causes” podcast earlier this month. “After which once I noticed on the primary group date, and I’m referring to all these situations that aren’t one-on-ones, as a result of that was how our relationship was lived out, you already know, I hadn’t had that one-on-one time together with her but. And once I had that day to spend together with her and actually get to know her higher, it simply affirmed all the pieces I had already felt.”
Matt added on the time that he didn’t know “the principles and laws” of dropping an L-bomb on the present.
“And so, each time I felt one thing, I stated it,” he stated. “And I solely stated issues that I meant and felt. So, if that acquired tossed round a couple of occasions, it’s as a result of I felt it. And if it doesn’t, then that signifies that connection hadn’t gotten to that time but.”
The Bachelor airs on ABC Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.
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