Exclusive: Matt James and His Unfiltered Take on Everything That Happened

We're 20 years into whatever The Bachelor is-entertainment? social experiment? influencer boot camp?-and its cultural impact is undeniable. But when Matt James became the first Black Bachelor, discourse reached a fever pitch. In this excerpt from his debut book, First Impressions, he opens up about it all.

-  IAN WOODS

The first lesson you learn after being announced as the Bachelor is to ignore social media chatter. I stopped checking Instagram, except to post occasionally, and all my friends knew not to send me the latest gossip. I wasn't interested. With a new controversy brewing every day, ignorance was truly bliss. So when rumors about Rachael Kirkconnell began bubbling up in the middle of the season, they took weeks to reach me. First came allegations of high school bullying, then insensitive comments she supposedly made. A Tik Tok rant about her past circulated on the web. It pulled her parents' voting record into the fray. News leaked that she and I chose each other at the end. The microscope on her life intensified.

Even after filming, especially after filming, being the Bachelor was a full-time job. I ran around the country constantly for appearances and interviews, too busy to pay any mind to noisy nonsense about my girlfriend. Rachael and I spoke almost hourly and were as in love as ever. We couldn't be seen in public together until news of our relationship became official, so while I hopped from flight to flight, she returned to Georgia to spend time with her family. She mentioned that some things about her past had popped up on the web, but I shrugged it off and told her not to worry about it. The Twitter mob would have a new target soon enough.

Then the picture dropped.