Matt James has officially returned to Instagram. The The Bachelor alum has been off the platform since posting a breakup announcement that shocked Bachelor Nation. Following the oddly-timed post, fans, other Bachelor Nation alum, and his now ex-girlfriend, Rachael Kirkconnell, have weighed in on the end of the romance. While James has returned to Instagram, he’s not up to talking about his split just yet.

On January 16, Matt James took to Instagram to announce the end of his relationship with Rachael Kirkconnell. The duo met on the set of The Bachelor in 2021. The post felt off. The language was overly formal, and the timing didn’t make much sense. After all, James had posted a video with Kirkconnell just hours before. The post was so off-putting that many followers speculated that James had been hacked. His account had not been hacked, and the split was real. After the post, James went inactive on Instagram. Three weeks later, he has returned.

While James appears interested in returning to the platform and resuming his life as an influencer, he isn’t yet ready for the comments he will surely get from followers and fans. He posted a running video from Kenya but turned the comments off on new posts and limited comments on others.

While James is clearly waiting for the heat to die before turning his comments back on, he will probably receive backlash no matter when he returns to his regular programming. The Bachelor fans have spent the time that James was away from the platform dissecting his feed, his chosen pictures, and, most importantly, his breakup. While some fans believe Rachael Kirkconnell needs to shoulder some of the blame for the relationship ending, most fans believe James, at best, strung Kirkconnell along. More critical followers have theorized that the social media influencer used Kirkconnell for clout and as his defacto assistant despite knowing she wasn’t the woman for him.

Rachael Kirkconnell opened up about the split before James’ return

While Matt James opted to take a few weeks away from the public eye following his breakup, Rachael Kirkconnell did not. Following the split, Kirkconnell appeared on Call Her Daddy and recounted exactly how the breakup went down. She admitted to feeling blindsided by the breakup. Kirkconnell went on to explain that James suddenly realized she was not the woman he wanted to marry. The breakup took place while they were vacationing together.

While Kirkconnell did give an interview, she’s been keeping it pretty low-key on social media recently. Still, she did show up on Instagram last week to share a photo dump from her time in Tokyo. She was vacationing in Tokyo with James when he decided it was time to call it quits. Kirkconnell chronicled learning that James had gone public with the breakup just moments before her flight from Japan to the United States took off.