When I was in my early 20s, I was in quite possibly the stupidest relationship of my life. Granted, that’s the kind of thing you’re supposed to do when you’re in your early 20s. It was the sort of on-and-off merry-go-round that had me posting cryptic Mitski lyrics on my Instagram Story every other day, archiving (not deleting) old posts that featured photos of us together, and scouring through his Following list to find anything that could potentially ring the alarm bells in my head. By the time we had broken up for good, there was no need to make a fuss about an announcement to my friends; they had already watched my relationship’s slow death play out in real time online.
Of course, I’m not an influencer or a celebrity, so I wasn’t really depriving the public of a service by forgoing an announcement. That said, people who make a living through the public consumption of their personal lives do seem to feel like they owe their fans some sort of explanation once their respective relationships have run their course—whether that means tasking an unnamed spokesperson to confirm the news to People or sharing a joint Notes app statement on Instagram—and that feeling is mutual. As a naturally communal species, people feel entitled to their nosiness, especially when that nosiness is directed towards public figures who appear untouchable by extension of their power and influence.
But, as it turns out, no amount of power and influence makes you immune to the temptation of breakup-posting. Earlier this month, Matt James, the lead of The Bachelor’s 25th season and the first Black Bachelor of the entire franchise, posted a hymn-like prayer that revealed the end of his relationship to his season’s winner, Rachael Kirkconnell. I use the word “winner” here loosely—Kirkconnell’s brush with reality TV wasn’t without its fair share of controversy. Besides James’s decision to not get down on one knee at the end (a big no-no in a franchise faithfully and obsessively dedicated to contestants getting engaged in the matter of a few weeks), he ultimately ended up breaking up with her at the live finale, following a scandal that involved old college party photos of her dressed up in Antebellum-era clothing spreading like wildfire online. The split was short-lived; they quickly wound up back together and, in the years since, have found their post-Bachelor niche as food and travel vloggers.
I’m not here to dabble in the ethics of a relationship I have no stake in. But, if you’re as shamelessly attuned to Bachelor Nation ongoings as I am, then James’s Instagram post was the breakup announcement heard around the world. The phrases he used were a marked deviation from his typical social media presence: “Father God,” he starts, “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.” It was a far cry from Jessica Alba’s divorce announcement, which was posted on the same day and included the prototypical language that we’ve come to expect from celebrity breakup announcements, including pithy platitudes about opening a “new chapter of growth” and “moving forward with love and kindness,” and–of course–letting it be known that the “children remain our highest priority.”
It didn’t help that James had posted videos of Kirkconnell just the day before, making fans wonder about the veracity of his post and even sparked speculation that the two were actually secretly engaged. When Kirkconnell appeared on an episode of Call Her Daddy earlier this week to reveal that James posted that breakup announcement/prayer a mere three hours after he dumped her, and that he allegedly told her that he couldn’t see himself married to her months after he told her to pick out engagement rings, the optics just got worse. Women saw themselves and their own breakups in the teary-eyed, sweatpants-wearing Kirkconnell, and hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. James had officially entered the Breakup Announcement Hall of Fame, right alongside Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s Goop-ified “conscious uncoupling” and Shakira naming her ex’s new girlfriend in “BZRP Music Session #53.”
It’s a position I don’t envy at all. Fame, to me, already seems like a booby-trapped arena, where the charismatic survive and those who don’t naturally take to media training perish. Never mind navigating that kind of landscape while going through something as painfully human, as exposing and vulnerable, as the end of a years-long relationship.
During one of the many mini breakups that came before our final breakup—like how there are dozens of tiny fault slips that precede an earthquake—I posted a selfie of myself using one of Instagram’s heart-eyes filters, with the caption, “When he puts the ‘men’ in ‘menace.’” My ex saw it, like I hoped he would, and proceeded to rage in my DMs with accusations that I was out to publicly humiliate him. We went back and forth for a while, both inflamed and hurt, before one of us finally blocked the other. However much I tried to convince him (and myself) that I had posted that with zero intentions of injuring him, I can see now, years later, why I did it. It was a stupid, ungraceful thing to post during a confusing and inconsolable period of my life. It was also cathartic. And it only received, like, 10 views.
