The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star also reveals that her boyfriend Dakota Mortensen is nervous about how he’ll react after a risky season — which includes his arrest for aggravated assault.
Taylor Frankie Paul blew up #MomTok by revealing a secret Mormon swinging scandal. Now, she’s putting herself and that controversy back in the spotlight with a new reality show.
Premiering this week, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives follows a sisterhood of Mormon women struggling to recover from a sex scandal that shook the group to its core. As they try to figure out a way forward, they also face new drama with the men in their lives and with each other, with cameras capturing all the fireworks.
Paul revealed the sexual relationship scandal at the center of the show again in May 2022, when she announced that her then-husband Tate Paul was divorcing her. At the time, she claimed that the couple were part of a “smooth swinging” community — meaning they could stop wanting to have penetrative sex with other people. The association turned sour, however, after she claimed she had gone too far with someone else in her community… and some of the events involved “developed emotions.”
None of the other female cast members of the Hulu show were immediately linked to the scandal, though Demi Engemann said she was at events where her husband got weird “vibes” and specified that they don’t share. Engemann also claimed that Paul told them that she “positively thought it would be fun to rock with us,” before accusing her of being “overly flirtatious” with her husband at one of the events.
When TooFab caught up with Paul, along with fellow cast member Jessi Ngatikaura, ahead of the premiere, we wondered if she would have liked others who were connected to the controversy to speak out when it happened… or if they had been on the show with her.
“Yeah. I’m really glad you asked that, since you’re the first person to ask me that. Of course, absolutely,” she advised TooFab. “It’s a shame, because they’re coming out after the fact the show was filmed. I felt like out of respect for them, I don’t think I used any names of people involved. I used to be really respectful, like, I could have come out and said that for sure, you know?”
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“However, when the trailer came out, there are podcasts being made, there are people coming out now and it’s just, like–” she added, before Jessi interrupted, “Injury management.”
“They’re just nervous,” Paul continued. “And I’m like, was the place all this when you would have–? and who said I even talked about you in the present anyway?”
In recent weeks, MomTok alums Miranda McWhorter and Camille Munday — who were immediately linked to the scandal but have denied being swingers — have been brought back into the spotlight after Munday did a podcast interview. While speaking with Weekly trashShe stated that she and Camille were invited to appear on the Hulu show, but declined.
“For our lives, it really didn’t feel right at all,” she said, adding that “it never made me feel good” and expressing concerns about her family.
Paul then hopped on her personal TikTok and claimed that the girls actually declined the gift because they refused to be in a group with her. This prompted McWhorter to share text receipts showing that they were concerned about Paul’s assault case, ultimately declining the gift before realizing the decision in their case. Chase also used his own TikTok to defend his ex, calling Paul’s allegations a “very apparent attempt to garner some clicks and views for the next show.”
Paul then knocked again once more, saying that the receipts only proved his levelincluding that his intention was not to gain extra PR, but that the additional consideration was not “to hurt both of us.”
“They’re probably doing themselves a disservice,” she told TooFab, before adding, “and I wouldn’t be surprised if they came back and tried for a second season, if we had one.”
There you have it, your permission to upload Instagram media.
The dangling scandal wouldn’t really be an issue for this first full season, which predates the main episode by a long shot. For Paul, his storyline mostly revolves around his often risky relationship with Dakota Mortensen.
At the time of filming, Paul was pregnant with the couple’s first child, following a domestic violence arrest for Paul in February 2023. Although she was initially charged with two felony counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child, one felony count of aggravated assault, and one misdemeanor count of child abuse and criminal mischief, she eventually accepted a plea deal, which found her pleading guilty to at least one count of aggravated assault; the other charges were dismissed.
Throughout the season, the two often struggle with each other as points of belief and self-sabotage threaten to tear them apart. At some points, their castmates call their connection “poisonous,” their own parents seem to struggle with their romance, and Dakota has to apologize for “overreacting” during one of their most explosive arguments.
“I think he intended to be a great boyfriend and protector, but I think it could look completely different, and he’s nervous about how he’s going to come across because he’s a really good man at the end of the day,” Paul told TooFab about how Mortensen is feeling ahead of the premiere.
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Her man isn’t the only different half who won’t be coming out trying their best when the show airs, as Paul said: “I can’t speak for the other guys, but there were a few things I’m sure you noticed there that they might regret doing on TV.”
“However, how many times can you look at mistakes again, you know?” Jessi added. “So I hope they pick it up and build on it. However, there are some husbands and boyfriends who will probably cringe watching this.”
As for Paul herself, she hopes putting the gift out there will help followers see deeper than “just the headlines you hear” about her — though she admits she hasn’t been as present with the other women on #MomTok as she would have liked.
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“I wanted — I wanted to be present with more of my women. As a result, I really feel like I was so distracted — clearly a, like, family and my relationship — that I wasn’t present here and able to, like, talk my thoughts out with #MomTok,” she shared. “And that’s the whole point of the show and I just sat there and watched all of this like, what the hell?”
“I have an opinion and I didn’t say much there. And I think if I went back, I would do it differently,” she added.
Fingers crossed for season 2!
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives premieres Friday on Hulu.