Months after her extremely publicized cut up from “Bachelor” alum Matt James, actuality TV star Rachael Kirkconnell is opening up about her sexuality in a brand new interview that’s sparking dialog throughout Bachelor Nation. The 29-year-old former winner of “The Bachelor” season 25 revealed she identifies as demisexual, a time period used to explain individuals who solely expertise sexual attraction after forming a deep emotional bond. The revelation got here throughout a candid dialogue with Hallie Batchelder, the place Rachael Kirkconnell shared contemporary perception into how she approaches love and intimacy following her breakup.

Quickly after, Rachael appeared on “Name Her Daddy,” explaining that James advised her he “couldn’t see himself proposing” and didn’t really feel “prepared” for marriage, a revelation that left followers shocked. Now, Rachael’s newest confession sheds new mild on how she views connection and attraction post-breakup, and why emotional security has change into her high precedence.

Throughout her “Further Soiled” look, Rachael candidly mirrored on her romantic method and the way she got here to comprehend she identifies as demisexual. “I believe that’s me,” she admitted, after host Hallie Batchelder introduced up the time period. “I simply really feel like I do should have an emotional reference to somebody. I simply don’t assume I might go residence with anybody. I’ve to really feel protected and cozy with them and be emotionally invested at the very least in a manner that I might see us courting or I at the very least have a crush on them.”

When Batchelder responded that “everybody needs to be demisexual,” Rachael laughed however stood by her view that connection trumps chemistry. “It’s not a bodily attraction, I suppose,” she added. “I can say, ‘Wow, that individual is absolutely enticing,’ however I don’t care after that. They may have the worst character ever, and that may make me not wish to sleep with them as a result of that absolutely turns me off.”

The star went on to confess she’s nonetheless studying about completely different labels and typically will get “confused” between demisexual and pansexual, however clarified that for her, attraction solely grows from emotional depth, not look. “I’m extra targeted on the bond than the attraction,” she mentioned. “Perhaps that’s my drawback. Their attraction can solely get up to now for me.”

Rachael Kirkconnell and Matt James’ relationship wasn’t with out its share of public challenges. Throughout their season of “The Bachelor” in 2021, the couple confronted intense backlash after pictures resurfaced of Rachael attending an Previous South–themed fraternity formal at Georgia School in 2018, an occasion that evoked painful ties to the antebellum South and its racist historical past.

The controversy ignited a nationwide dialog round race and accountability within the “Bachelor” franchise, notably as a result of Matt was the primary Black lead within the present’s long-running historical past.

On the time, Rachael issued a public apology on Instagram, writing that she was “sorry to anybody that has been offended or harm” and admitted she was studying how her actions contributed to a broader cultural drawback. “I didn’t acknowledge how offensive and racist my actions have been, however that doesn’t excuse them,” she wrote. “They aren’t acceptable or OK in any sense. I used to be ignorant, however my ignorance was racist.”