Last week, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul announced she’s going to star in the next season of The Bachelorette. The news sent shockwaves through reality TV fandoms, and rightfully so: it’s the first time the Bachelor franchise has chosen a lead who didn’t compete in previous seasons. If viewers who are familiar with Paul know anything, they know she’s sure to bring us one of the best seasons of reality TV yet.
Before solidifying herself as an on-screen persona, Paul created #MomTok, a group of Mormon women who gained popularity and became influencers on TikTok during the pandemic. The women were famous for doing dances and bringing attention to a new generation of Mormons navigating both their traditional values and modern-day perspectives.
Then Paul took the conversation about #MomTok to a whole new level when she went live and revealed she was involved in a swinging scandal with her recently separated husband and other couples. Apparently, they had agreed to be in an open relationship with other members of their friend group. According to Paul, most of #MomTok wasn’t involved in the swinging, but the news had already caused a major stir online.
“It wasn’t like I was going around like hooking up with my friend’s husband. It was like, we were at a party, I got belligerent, and we went and messed up by ourselves rather than with the whole group,” Paul said during the TikTok live. When the #MomTok swinging scandal went viral, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives was born.
Paul didn’t waste any time ensuring the new unscripted series would be full of drama and spectacle. In the very first episode, she breaks down the scandal buzz and addresses some awkwardness with her fellow #MomTokkers. She also shares that she has a new boyfriend, Dakota Mortensen, who is navigating sobriety. Paul unexpectedly got pregnant and also miscarried. The first episode ends with Paul getting arrested for domestic violence at her own home — neighbors called the cops one night when they heard Paul and Mortensen fighting.
There’s a significant time jump between the first episode and the next — production took time off between filming in order to figure out if Paul was going to be involved in the show and to what capacity, given the arrest. (Ultimately, Paul took a plea deal, which helped her avoid jail time or a felony conviction.)
The first season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which premiered in Sept. 2024, documents the highs and lows of Paul and Mortensen’s relationship. When cameras picked back up to film the rest of the season, Paul is pregnant again. She and Mortensen move in together, planning to raise their baby together and start the next phase of their relationship. Paul finds out at the end of the season from another #MomTokker that there’s a rumor Mortensen wasn’t fully honest at the beginning of their relationship, and there was overlap between her and another woman.
In the second season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, fans watch the fallout between Paul and Mortensen as they navigate their breakup. Paul gets confirmation from the other woman involved in her unintentional love triangle that Mortensen was, in fact, hooking up with them both at the same time. It isn’t easy for Paul and Mortensen to fully let go of each other, so viewers watch their toxic, emotional back-and-forth.
Throughout the season, the future of #MomTok is a major topic of conversation. With so many fractured friendships and misalignments and their brand messaging up in the air, the season is ripe with theatrics and discord. One of those moments occurs, again, with Paul at the center. After Paul was invited to attend the Country Music Awards and present an award on stage, she expressed discontent with her fellow #MomTokkers for not showing her any support on social media. The women retorted that they sent her private text messages congratulating her and wishing her luck on the big career move. Still, Paul insisted they should have written messages of public support online.
For whatever reason, Paul seems to find herself involved in many points of conflict, whether she’s trying to make her romantic relationship work with Mortensen or she’s fighting with #MomTok members. Through it all, Paul remains candid and raw, despite the cameras following her through such a tumultuous time in her life. She doesn’t shy away from being honest and giving viewers pretty unlimited insight into her life.
Now, Paul is definitively single and entering a new chapter. For the last year, she’s posted videos on TikTok about healing from her past relationships, even taking jabs at her ex-husband and Mortensen, her now ex-boyfriend. In her interview with Call Her Daddy’s Alex Cooper (you can watch it here), Paul shared that a video she posted jokingly “auditioning” for The Bachelorette actually did catch the attention of the powers-that-be at the longstanding ABC reality series.
With Paul at the helm of the next season of The Bachelorette, the season is sure to be full of fireworks. We’re talking about a woman who was bold enough to suggest herself for the show in a TikTok video, even if she says she was joking. There’s no doubt she’s well-suited to star on a major reality TV show where a group of men are clamoring for her attention, especially a show that’s been more traditional and structured than Secret Lives.
Paul may be an unconventional choice, but everything we know about her should make for another incredible reality season.
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