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Matt James and Rachael Kirkconnell's racism feud: Black 'The Bachelor' star slammed for choosing 'White Queen'

'It was in that moment and the conversation that I had that [I realized that] Rachael might not understand what it means to be Black in America,' Matt said

As if ‘The Bachelor’ Season 25 finale wasn’t dramatic enough, the viewers also got to witness 'After The Final Rose' with Emmanuel Acho, where Matt James, Rachael Kirkconnell and Michelle Young laid down their opinions about a number of matters, mainly surrounding Rachael’s controversial racist past. Matt, who called it quits on his short-lived romance with Rachael, explained to the host and the viewers the reason he took a step back in their relationship.

“Before Rachael addressed anything or Chris Harrison spoke on anything, I'm trying to be there for her, and I dismissed them as rumors because that's what they were to me. You hear things that are heartbreaking, and you just pray they're not true. And then, when you find out that they are it just makes you question everything,” Matt told Acho when asked about his initial response to Rachael’s antebellum party pictures from 2018. 

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Matt further explained how he just couldn’t bring himself to accept everything he had with Rachael when he realized the situation his then-girlfriend had put him in. He said, “When she spoke out and publicly acknowledged that she would do better and she apologized is when I was finally able to take a check on myself and see where I was at, and I wasn't OK. It was in that moment and the conversation that I had that [I realized that] Rachael might not understand what it means to be Black in America,” he added further. Matt confirmed he had to “take a step back and allow her to put in that work, and I'm looking forward to seeing her put in that work."

On listening to Matt's statement, many fans of 'The Bachelor' have slammed him for picking a White woman and then realizing she couldn't understand "what it means to be a Black."

One tweeted, "The first “Black” Bachelor just picked his racist white Queen. Love wins! God bless America!" Another added, "Matt couldn’t believe his white queen was really who she is #TheBachelor" One wrote, "Poor Matt just wanted to be happy with his white queen and she just had to be racist #TheBachelor " Adding to the above tweets another tweeted, "So Matt chose Rachael....a white Girl from The South.....who "shockingly" has a racist background. WTF were you two talking about when getting to know each other? A conversation about race is MANDATORY when dating interracially!! Lame. #TheBachelor".

'The Bachelor' Season 25 aired on March 16 at 8 PM ET on ABC.