This week was not a good one to be a Disney executive. Days ago, reports began circulating that Taylor Frankie Paul, the star of the Hulu series Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and ABC’s upcoming The Bachelorette, was involved in a domestic violence investigation stemming from a February incident with her ex-partner, Dakota Mortensen. (Disney is the parent company of Hulu and ABC.) By Tuesday, multiple outlets reported that production on the fifth season of Mormon Wives was down, as cast members refused to interact with Paul. The 31-year-old TikTok turned reality star, meanwhile, soldiered on with a gauntlet of Bachelorette promotional duties, speaking vaguely about “heavy times”. But on Thursday, video leaked online of a domestic violence incident from 2023; footage showed an intoxicated Paul throwing metal barstools at Mortensen and accidentally hitting her five-year-old daughter. By day’s end, the network cancelled the whole season of The Bachelorette, heavily advertised and filmed in its entirety last year, three days before its premiere.
You could say that this mess, which has drawn the attention of people previously unaware of MomTok or the Bachelorette, is sad, troubling or too complex for entertainment. (It is all of the above.) What you cannot say is that this is a surprise. To anyone with even a cursory understanding of the Mormon Wives franchise or time to Google, this debacle is sadly predictable – the likely result of banking on a famously divisive reality star to rejuvenate a flagging franchise, and the latest example of legacy media overlooking red flags for influencer clout. To be clear: Paul’s actions are her own, but this debacle – which will reportedly cost ABC tens of millions of dollars – is on the company.
The casting of Paul, who shot to viral fame in 2022 for a “soft-swinging” scandal among Mormon influencers, as the first Bachelorette without pre-existing ties to the franchise was supposed to be a savvy bit of Disney synergy: bring the dynamite star of a Hulu franchise that regularly out-ranks The Kardashians, along with her massive social media following, to a languishing ABC franchise. Other Mormon wives have appeared on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, but Paul, the Mormon Wives phenomenon’s raison d’être, seemed to have the weight of the entire Bachelorette franchise on her shoulders. As one tabloid headline put it: “Entire Bachelor Franchise ‘Could Be CANCELED’ If Bachelorette Taylor Frankie Paul Doesn’t ‘Save Embarrassing Ratings”.
So tantalizing was this possibility that Bachelorette producers broke many of the franchise’s rules to make it happen. Unlike all prior contestants, Paul was allowed to keep her phone during production (in part to communicate with her three young children, in part to post behind-the-scenes content). The sacred “here for the right reasons” dictat was allowed to become fodder for Mormon Wives, where her ongoing on-and-off relationship with Mortensen remains a major plot point; the latest season, which aired this month, hinged in part on Paul sleeping with Mortensen the night before the Bachelorette started filming.
The show also overlooked or embraced numerous red flags: that Paul seemed, by her own admission, to go on the show not to find love but to escape a toxic relationship, and most notably that 2023 incident. The horrifying video that caused ABC to actually renege on the season is far from new information. Police bodycam footage from that night, in which Paul is arrested, literally opens the first season of Mormon Wives. (Paul pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, and is serving three years’ probation.) Paul has discussed the incident in interviews – “one of my lowest nights,” she told the podcast Call Her Daddy in September; last year, she joked about “throwing things” on TikTok. Almost every detail in the video has been previously reported or alleged, long before Paul was cast as the Bachelorette. The only difference is that now we’re seeing it.
The Bachelor franchise is no stranger to controversy over problematic people, from participants who posted racist tweets to several cast members accused of domestic violence, stalking, or violating temporary restraining orders before coming on the show. But those clear vetting issues – either a failure of research or a bet on drama – pale in comparison to the decision to cast someone whose literal career is creating riveting reality melodrama for cameras. Spiky, strikingly vulnerable, prone to oversharing and outbursts, Paul is capable of reality TV magic; there’s a reason she is popular. But there was always a major risk in banking so heavily on a reality star whose most enduring and endearing quality is a tendency to burn it all down; a person famous for her poor romantic decisions; a mom of three who, at least according to a New York Magazine profile that had to be rapidly rewritten for its Friday publication, only processes feelings on camera, hasn’t had a break from filming in months and is experiencing a mental breakdown.
Disney and ABC made a bet that Paul’s tumultuous past would either blow over or be worth the attention boost to its flagging franchise, and that her instability would attract viewers rather than repel them. It sure looks like they assumed the magnetism of a seemingly very unwell person, in a clearly toxic relationship, was worth the investment; the network essentially bet that all of that could be maintained or managed enough for the money to flow. That bet has now failed spectacularly. But it was always clear they never should have made it in the first place.
