Where it all began! Matt James and Rachael Kirkconnell returned to the place where they fell in love one year after their journey was captured on season 25 of The Bachelor.
“Back at it and going somewhere super special this week,” Kirkconnell, 25, captioned a sweet Instagram photo of the pair on Wednesday, January 19, during a couple’s getaway to Pennsylvania. That same day, James, 30, confirmed that they had arrived at Nemacolin, where their reality TV romance was filmed.
The couple, who were joined by James’ mother on the road trip, showed their social media followers around the hotel while reminiscing about their time on the ABC series. James and Kirkconnell’s love story played out on the 2021 season of the reality show, but as the episodes were airing, the graphic designer made headlines when photos resurfaced of her attending an “Old South”-themed frat party in 2018.
“While there have been rumors circulating, there have also been truths that have come to light that I need to address. I hear you, and I’m here to say I was wrong,” she wrote via Instagram in February 2021. “At one point, I didn’t recognize how offensive and racist my actions were, but that doesn’t excuse them. My age or when it happened does not excuse anything. They are not acceptable or OK in any sense. I was ignorant, but my ignorance was racist.”
While the Georgia native apologized amid widespread backlash, news broke that she and James had called it quits. During the After the Final Rose special, the former football player explained that he broke up with Kirkconnell to give her the space to focus on educating herself.
“If you don’t understand why something like that is problematic in 2018, there’s a lot of me that you won’t understand,” he explained in March 2021. “It’s as simple as that.”
In the aftermath of the scandal, the duo sparked reconciliation rumors when they were spotted spending time together. James eventually confirmed that the twosome were giving their relationship another try, and Kirkconnell later opened up about how their romance improved after their brief split.
“We’re in a great place,” she exclusively told Us Weekly in September 2021. “We just needed to take that time away from everyone and really figure everything out, and I think that we were just so sick of the outside noise and we were like, ‘You know what? We need to just put all of that aside and really focus on our relationship and how we feel about each other and nothing else.’ It’s been so incredible.”
Scroll down to see James and Kirkconnell’s romantic return to Nemacolin: