Last night, we were on the YouTube front lines — alongside 250k other people — to see what former “Bachelor” winner Rachael Kirkconnell had to say about her very fresh breakup. Because if there’s a woman who’s in need of a comfy couch, a matching sweat set, and some tea spilling, Alex Cooper is gonna rise to the occasion and offer all three on “Call Her Daddy.”

For those out of the loop on Bachelor Nation / influencer news, on January 16 former Bachelor Matt James posted a bizarre, prayer-filled post on Instagram announcing his split from Rachael, his girlfriend of four years. The pair met when Matt was the lead of “The Bachelor” in 2021, and weathered a racism scandal that led to the ousting of the show’s longtime host, Chris Harrison.

The caption of Matt’s breakup post — which was posted at 6 a.m. EST — read as follows:

“Father God, give Rachael and I strength to mend our broken hearts. Give us a peace about this decision to end our relationship that transcends worldly understanding. Shower our friends and family with kindness and love to comfort us. And remind us that our Joy comes from you, Lord 💔”

This, unsurprisingly, caused a feeding frenzy on social media. Was Matt’s account hacked? He had just been posting videos with Rachael in them! Why was Rachael being silent? What the fuck was going on? Little by little, information started trickling out. We learned from Rachael’s sister that the couple had only been broken up for three hours when Matt posted on Instagram, and we learned from DeuxMoi that they had just been vacationing together in Tokyo. But other than that, all we had was pure speculation. Enter Alex Cooper.

On Monday night, the “Call Her Daddy” sit-down premiered on YouTube. And it was both less salacious and more sad than perhaps people were expecting. We did not learn about any big revelations of infidelity, just about the more mundane signals that a relationship dynamic may not be a healthy one. (And about the fact that Rachael saw Matt’s breakup post JUST AS SHE BOARDED A 12-HOUR FLIGHT.) However, the hour and 40-minute interview was raw, honest and deeply relatable.

The two of us had big plans to cover “Traitors” this week, but instead we decided to bump that until next week so we could discuss this “Call Her Daddy” episode. We get into the details Rachael outlined of the breakup, how “The Bachelor” sets couples up to fail, what we’d like to hear from Matt, and why we think so many of us viscerally connected to Rachael’s post-breakup grief. Hope you enjoy! Xo

Share Rich Text

If you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!

Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod • Subscribe • Request a free