After Matt James’ girlfriend, Rachael Kirkconnell, and best friend Tyler Cameron made playful jabs at each other, the trio detailed the reality of their dynamic.
“Where did our beef start, Rachael?” Cameron, 29, said during a recent episode of his “Everybody But Me” radio show.
Kirkconnell, 26, replied that he started it. “You are doing interviews left and right, just throwing me under the bus. Saying I’m the ‘the old ball and chain,’” she explained.
Tyler Cameron. Rachel Kirkconnell and Matt James. Shutterstock(3)
James, 31, then chimed in to say he was actually the problem.
“I hadn’t had a girlfriend, like, a serious, committed relationship in years. So coming off of [The Bachelor], I didn’t know what it meant to be, like, a boyfriend yet. … My girlfriend was still technically Tyler,” the season 25 lead, who met Cameron in college years before he fell for Kirkconnell on the ABC show, said. “I didn’t know that, like, I had to spend more time with you than Tyler yet. … I didn’t know I had to include [Rachael] in those things. And I was doing boyfriend-girlfriend things with TC still. … I wasn’t balancing my time. Then I tried to balance it by, like, including [Rachael] in the things that me and TC were doing. And then, in part, it was messing up y’all’s relationship. And then I went on Andy Cohen.”
James is referring to his May 2022 appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, during which he referred to Cameron and Kirkconnell’s relationship as “love-hate.”
“That’s where all the interview questions came [from],” Kirkconnell said. “You were like, ‘Yeah, hate her.’”
The trio laughed before the Bachelorette season 15 runner-up shed more light on how he felt about Kirkconnell when she was living with him and James when the couple got back together in spring 2021.
Matt James at a 92nd Street Y Event, December 2021. MediaPunch/Shutterstock
“When you first started dating Matt, and you started moving in, I had a ball with you. I had fun with you. I was like, ‘Oh, she’s way more fun than Matt, like, she’ll actually drink with me. … She won’t go to bed at 10:30 p.m. and we’re all trying to go out,’” Cameron explained. “And then, I just kept waking up hungover from all our partying and Rachael’s like, ‘You need to do better Tyler.’ … She’s like, ‘You need to not be acting like that.’ And, like, I was spiraling.”
Cameron admitted he was in a “dark time” and partying a lot.
“And I was like, ‘Man, if this girl don’t get out of here — she takes my homie and then she’s over here in my crib [with] her makeup everywhere. And now she’s telling me how I’m supposed to be?’” he continued.
Kirkconnell noted that “anything” she ever said to Cameron was “from a place of love.”
She explained: “Because I knew you were hurting and I personally don’t think, like, going and getting drunk and all of that is — I think there’s a time where you can get things out of your system — but I do think at one point you have to, like, give yourself some TLC.”
Cameron agreed. “I was just running from that. I always looked at you like a sister because you’re Matt’s girl. I was like, ‘I know she’s looking out for me. But I don’t want to hear s—t.’ So I would just give you attitude or mess with you,” he said. “Because I looked at you like a sister.”
The Georgia native noted that she was “fine with all of that” until Cameron started answering questions about her in the media.
“And then I was like, ‘Wait, did I do something?’ That’s why I texted you. I was like, ‘What is this about?’” she recalled.
Cameron concluded: “No, Rachael was 1,000 percent right. … She was looking out for me. But I was just being a little stubborn piece of crap, which I can be.”