Matt James’ Former Roommate Dishes on Living With Him

ABC Matt James during the premiere episode of The Bachelor.

Matt James is on national television looking for his wife on The Bachelor, but one of his former roommates warned that living with him isn’t so great.

A woman named Sophia Shefner appeared on a podcast called Stay At Home Pop in January, and said that she recently lived with James in New York City. According to Shefner, she met James on a roommate search app called “Roomies” and lived with him for a year, along with former Bachelorette contestant Tyler Cameron who was “squatting there for, like, five months.”

“He’s the worst; I really didn’t like him,” Shefner said on the podcast. “Our apartment kind of became like this weird crash pad for guys from The Bachelorette guys of Tyler Cameron’s season. Whenever they would do Good Morning America or something, they would all crash there. And then Matt also used to play college football at Wake Forest and he would just make copies of our … he had to have given out 20 copies of our apartment key to random-ass dudes he used to play college football with.

“One day, I came home from work at like 11 p.m. and some giant dude I’ve never met is peeing in my bathroom with the door open and Matt isn’t in the apartment. I sat him down and I was like, ‘Look, Tyler’s dating Gigi Hadid, he needs to pay rent. You have to stop giving out our key, I feel unsafe.’ And he was like, ‘I just don’t understand the issue.’ I was like, ‘I’m a single woman, I feel uncomfortable.’ And he looked at me dead in the face and said, ‘I don’t care that you feel uncomfortable.’ I was like, ‘OK, I hate you,’ and I started crying.”

In another anecdote, Shefner said a contestant from The Bachelorette (she didn’t say which) scared her when he burst into her room at about 2 a.m. mistakenly believing it was James’ room.

Matt James & Tyler Cameron Now Live Together

GettyMatt James and Tyler Cameron attends the relaunch of The Delta SkyMiles® American Express Cards at Helen Mills Event Space on February 06, 2020 in New York City.

James is no longer living with any roommates he found on “Roomies.” He and Bachelorette alum Tyler Cameron — who met when they played football together at Wake Forest — now live together on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

According to the New York Post, their ritzy two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment rents for about $8,000 a month. In August, Cameron told People that James’ room needs some interior design help.

“I think it’s like a jungle theme that just never pans out,” Cameron said. “It’s really one that we’ve still got to work on… He wanted lions and hyenas, but then he also wanted pancakes. So he has photos of animals on the wall, he has photos of breakfast food going … then randomly, he has a jersey from middle school hanging up. I’m like, ‘Dude, what is going on in here.’”

Matt James Is Very Private About His Life Before ‘The Bachelorette’

Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Hudson River ParkThe Bachelor, Matt James, attends a gala.

Stories from Shefner about living with James are a rare look into what his life may actually be like. While it’s impossible to know if they’re true stories or if Shefner just has an axe to grind, clues about his past are few and far between. There’s very little known about his dating history and even on a show as personal as The Bachelorette, James has revealed very little about himself.

Shefner said on the podcast that’s par for the course with James.

“I lived with him for a year and learned absolutely nothing about him, so I think that’s kind of a trait of his,” Shefner said.

Heavy has reached out to ABC for comment.

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