When a group of glossy-haired Mormon housewives-turned-TikTokers secured their own Hulu reality show in 2024, nobody could have predicted the cultural domination that followed. The eight stars of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives — who first found fame in the wake of a viral “soft swinging” scandal — have infiltrated every corner of popular culture: landing book deals, a Broadway debut and coveted slots on Dancing With the Stars. The trajectory seemed to reach yet new heights when Taylor Frankie Paul, the reality series’ chaotic mother of three, was cast as the female lead on ABC’s stalwart dating show The Bachelorette, cementing the cultural domination of SLOMW.
But days before Paul’s season was set to premiere, ABC pulled the season at the last minute after domestic violence allegations against the 31-year-old star triggered widespread backlash. On Wednesday (18 March), it emerged that Paul and Dakota Mortensen, her ex-boyfriend and father of her third child, are being investigated by police on allegations of domestic assault, prompting Hulu to pause filming for its fifth season of SLOMW. The following day, disturbing footage leaked to TMZ showed Paul attacking Mortensen during a violent 2023 altercation, for which Paul was charged with three misdemeanors, including assault, criminal mischief and domestic violence in the presence of a child. She is currently under a three-year supervised probation. ABC’s parent company, Disney Entertainment Television, said in a statement Thursday: “In light of the newly released video just surfaced today, we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of The Bachelorette at this time, and our focus is on supporting the family.”
After the disturbing footage came to light, Paul released a statement through her representatives to Variety, lambasting her ex: “It’s sad to see the latest installment of his never-ending, desperate, attention-seeking, destructive campaign to harm Taylor without any regard for the consequences for their child… Releasing an old video, which conveniently omits context, on their son’s birthday is a reprehensible attempt to distract from his own behavior. Thankfully, the public has seen this act before and knows who he is and sadly, many will recognize this pattern of manipulation, both in his actions on the show, and from their own experiences.”
Paul’s casting was unprecedented and doomed from the start. Bachelorette traditionalists’ first gripe was that she was selected from outside of the ABC dating universe (traditionally, the network picks the women from previous seasons of The Bachelor). Then it emerged that ABC had bent the rules for her: she was allowed her phone during filming to promote SLOMW and contact her three children, while previous contestants were told to detach from the outside world.
As the events unfolded this week, reality TV fans have all been asking the same question: Why did ABC ever think that casting Paul was a sound decision in the first place? Paul’s indiscretions were out in the open long before The Bachelorette came knocking; the very first episode of SLOMW showed police body camera footage of her 2023 arrest. Her toxic, on-again-off-again relationship with Mortensen alone should have been enough to deter ABC from introducing Paul to 22 new suitors, given she was still entangled in that very relationship. From the start, it was a terrible choice; one driven by a hunger to survive in the reality TV market.
The Bachelorette has been in steady decline since its late-2010s peak, with average viewership falling from 9.23 million for season six in 2010 to just 3.7 million by season 17 in 2021. Meanwhile, SLOMW has been a breakout success for Disney, becoming Hulu’s most-watched unscripted premiere of 2024 (outpacing The Kardashians). ABC has since been using the show to boost ailing behemoths like Dancing With The Stars — the latest season of which starred MomTok’s Whitney Leavitt and Jen Affleck — and The Bachelor.
It’s not the first time the network has come under scrutiny after failing to properly vet contestants for its beloved dating franchise. In 2024, it was revealed that the winner of Jenn Tran’s Bachelorette season, Devin Strader, was found to have had a previous felony burglary charge and a restraining order filed against him. Lincoln Adim, appearing on The Bachelorette for Becca Kufrin’s season in 2018, was revealed to have been previously convicted of indecent assault and battery after he groped a woman, which ABC said did not come up in its industry-standard background checks. Given this track record, the decision to cast Paul feels less like an oversight and more like a calculated risk the network was willing to take.
From the outset of her career, controversy has trailed Paul at every turn. Her breakout moment came when Hulu commissioned SLOMW off the back of MomTok—the influencer clique she formed in 2022 with Whitney Leavitt, Mayci Neeley and Mikayla Matthews — whose mix of parenting content and dance videos drew a vast following. But the group’s rise was quickly overshadowed by a “soft swinging” scandal, largely ignited by Paul herself when she revealed in a TikTok livestream that she and her ex-husband, Tate Paul, were divorcing after intimate encounters with other couples in Salt Lake City. The fallout dragged others into the spotlight, with several denying involvement, and nearly tore the group apart — spawning the now much-memed refrain: “Can #MomTok survive this?”
Even before the latest revelations, fans and former contestants within the ABC dating universe had been sounding the alarm over the network’s decision to cast Paul. Charity Lawson, who was the Bachelorette on season 20, said in a TikTok post shared this week that “dating shows are not for you to find healing.” When several queried whether this was a message to Paul ahead of her season, she added: “This is for whoever — I’m speaking from a mental health standpoint and let’s be very clear, I’m going to advocate for the well-being of cast members, whoever they are, if I see a noticeable problem. Mental health is not a joke and should be taken seriously.” Ben Higgins, from season 20 of The Bachelor, admitted on the Almost Famous podcast that the show “doesn’t have the best track record right now of casting people or doing background checks on people.” He continued: “There’s forgiveness and there’s grace … but it doesn’t mean you come on a reality show looking to find your partner in front of all of us and make yourself susceptible to the criticisms and the praise that come with this show. That, mentally, is taxing in itself.”
In the past week, too, reports have suggested that Paul’s fellow MomTok members are trying to distance themselves from Paul amid the drama. SLOMW star Mayci Neeley said during a recent interview that Paul appeared unusually “level-headed” on the most recent season ahead of her debut on The Bachelorette. “We watched it and were like, ‘Uh, that’s not the Taylor we see all the time,’” said Neeley. “She had a very level-headed edit, and I’m not saying she’s not level-headed. I’m just saying that, we see the other side to Taylor off-camera as well.”
It’s worth asking why Paul agreed to take part in the first place. The SLOMW season finale revealed she had even considered backing out of her Bachelorette commitment entirely. The night before filming the opening episode, she spent time with Mortensen and ended up missing her flight. Once she landed in Los Angeles, she FaceTimed him, and he kept her on the hook by asking her to “save a rose for me” — a reference to the show’s signature elimination ritual.
We may never see Paul’s scenes on The Bachelorette that were recorded last fall. And it’s probably best we never do. In teaser clips, Paul seemed far from ready for the process. She even admitted that participating in the show was “an opportunity to get away from” Mortensen. As for the future of the Mormon Wives, it remains to be seen whether they can distance themselves enough from Paul to continue filming their Hulu show, which has been paused indefinitely. Perhaps this is the scandal that MomTok can’t survive, after all.
The national domestic abuse helpline offers support for women on 0808 2000 247, or you can visit the Refuge website. There is a dedicated men's advice line on 0808 8010 327. Those in the US can call the domestic violence hotline on 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
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