ABC has found its newest “Bachelorette” in “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” reality star Taylor Frankie Paul.
Paul, who appeared in the popular Hulu series, revealed her upcoming foray into Bachelor Nation on Wednesday’s episode of Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast. “It has not hit me. Right now in this moment, I’m just thinking about it and it’s not real,” she told Cooper.
She added: “It’s not real. It’s not going to be until I have the limos [full of suitors] pulling up.”
The 31-year-old #MomTok influencer-turned-reality TV personality breaks a longtime norm for the “Bachelor” franchise. Incoming leads on “The Bachelor” or “The Bachelorette” have historically been contestants from previous seasons. Paul, on the other hand, has not.
Don’t mistake her for a reality TV rookie, though.
Paul was announced as the newest “Bachelorette” a year after “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” became a buzzworthy hit. The series follows a group of Utah-based TikTok influencers who became the subject of social media scandal when Paul announced she and her then-husband had participated in “soft swinging” and were going their separate ways. The series’ debut chronicled the fallout and explored how its young, modern stars navigate the traditionalist culture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Speaking to Cooper, Paul said she once thought the “Bachelorette” gig was “unattainable” and shared how she thinks she landed the part. She said she had been open on social media about being single and her fans began making the case for her to become the series’ next star. Ultimately, she received the invitation.
She said she initially hesitated to accept, citing her co-parenting commitments. Paul shares a daughter and son with her ex-husband, and another son with an ex-boyfriend. She explained that she tapped her inner circle to help care for the children, voicing her determination to “make it work.”
Paul is the latest “Mormon Wives” star to cross over to ABC programming. “Dancing With the Stars” announced in July that Paul’s fellow #MomTok-ers Jen Affleck and Whitney Leavitt would take the dance floor for Season 34. Disney owns both “Mormon Wives” streamer Hulu and “Bachelorette” and “DWTS” home network ABC.
“The Bachelorette” won’t return until 2026, but viewers can catch Paul beforehand when “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” Season 3 premieres Nov. 13 on Hulu.
In “The Hunting Wives,” a brightly configured murder mystery cum cartoon sex opera premiering Monday on Netflix, Brittany Snow plays Sophie O’Neil, newly arrived from Boston with husband Graham (Evan Jonigkeit) and prop young son to fictional Maple Brook, Texas, a rich people’s town somewhere in the vicinity of Dallas. Graham is an architect, seemingly — at one point he will say, “Soph, you gotta check out this joinery,” which, in the three episodes out for review, is as specific as that will get — who has come to work for rich person Jed Banks (Dermot Mulroney) to build “the new Banks HQ.” What will happen in there is not said.
The O’Neils step into this world by way of a fundraiser at which Banks, who wants to be governor, is making a speech in support of the National Rifle Assn., highlighting the need for guns for “good people” to fend off “all sorts of evil sumbitches” and the “personas malos keep pouring in every day” across the border. This is as much of a platform as he will bother to have; plotwise, the point is that running for office may expose his swinging private life to public scrutiny.
Over the course of the party, we meet the major players: Jill (Katie Lowes) is married to Rev. Clint (Jason Davis), who runs the local megachurch; her son Brad (George Ferrier) — who would be named Brad — is an unpleasant slab of basketball-playing meat who is seeing, which is to say, trying to sleep with Abby (Madison Wolfe), a nice girl from the wrong side of the tracks. (Jill is against the relationship; Abby’s mother, Starr, played by Chrissy Metz, has her own reservations.) Callie (Jaime Ray Newman), second among the eponymous wives, is married to Sheriff Jonny (Branton Box); I’m not sure whether Jonny is his first or last name, but this does seem the kind of place where the sheriff would be known by his first. Supplementary wives Monae (Joyce Glenn) and Taylor (Alexandria DeBerry) are just there to make up the numbers.
Most important is Margo Banks (Malin Akerman), whom Sophie encounters in a bathroom where she has gone to take a Xanax for her social anxiety, and who, within seconds and not for the last time, is casually topless. Margo has no social anxiety.
She seizes on Sophie as fresh blood, or from some genuine connection, or because she recognizes in the newcomer the sort of person who needs a person like her, someone Margo can productively dominate to their mutual advantage. Margo immediately declares they’ll be besties — creating a rift with Callie, the current occupant of that role, who, radiating jealousy at every pore, is determined to get between them.
Sophie, Graham seems proud to announce, was once “a bit of a wild child … a party girl” who became a career woman — a political PR operative — and, for the last seven years, a full-time mother. He has a lightly controlling, “for your own good” manner, keeping her from drinking or driving — there’ll be a reason for that, you’ll have guessed — but before long, she will drink, and she will drive. “Two rules,” says Margo, getting her behind the wheel. “Trust me and do everything I say.”
Drafted into Margo’s world, Sophie is soon shooting skeet, and then, having bought her own guns, wild boar. I cite again the Chekhov dictum to the effect that a gun in the first act ought to go off in the second, but there are so many about here, and our attention so significantly drawn to them, it would be a shock if some didn’t fire — the only questions being which and when and whose, pointed at what or whom.
Developed by Rebecca Perry Cutter (“Hightown”) from May Cobb’s 2021 novel of the same name, the series offers a light dusting of political references — “deplorables,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, no abortion clinics “left to bomb,” negative mentions of feminism and liberals — that might as easily been left off in light of the insular fantasyland within which “The Hunting Wives” operates. (Did J.R. Ewing ever express a political opinion?) Given the context — liberal Northerners camped among conservative Southerners — one might have expected a “Stepford Wives” scenario, but this is something different. Within, or exploiting, their sociocultural limits (“We don’t work, we wife,” says Monae proudly), the women party heartily while the men, even when nominally powerful, come across as comparatively bland, uninteresting and distracted. Graham, who is very nice, can seem positively dim; “Take my wife, please,” he’ll happily joke when Margo rides up on a jet ski to spirit Sophie away from a family day at the lake.
The characters are types, but the actors fill them out well, and the dynamic between Margo and Sophie really is … dynamic. Margo is intriguing because she’s hard to figure. Like Sophie, she has a hidden past — when a mysterious figure at the local roadhouse (Jullian Dulce Vida) calls her Mandy, it makes her atypically nervous because, obviously, she was once called Mandy. She lies to her husband; she’s having sex with Brad, which just seems like bad taste. But there’s something authentic and genuine about Margo magnified by Akerman’s entrancing performance. Margo is a temptress, the devil on Sophie’s shoulder — but maybe the angel too.
Lest we forget, there’s a murder, which opens the show in a flash forward; the series catches up with it by the end of Episode 3. (It brings in Karen Rodriguez as Det. Salazar, which promises good things.) There’s also a briefly mentioned missing girl, which will certainly tie in somehow. But with only three episodes out of eight seen, it’s impossible to say where it’s all going — unless you’ve read the book, I suppose, but even then, you never know. What’s clear is that there’ll be more secrets to reveal, with skeletons tumbling out of every closet. And these are big houses, with plenty of storage.
From allegations of infidelity to swinging scandals, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives offers a look into a version of Mormon life far removed from traditional public perception.
Set in suburban Utah, the TV series follows a group of Mormon women – most of whom rose to fame on TikTok and became MomTok influencers – as they manage scandals, confront marital breakdowns and clash over everything from business ventures to party invitations.
But beneath the sensational plotlines is a more complex story about the evolving dynamics within a tight-knit community.
The group of Mormon mothers have been making content online for the past five years but say the concept of reality TV still feels very new to them.
“I’ve heard that eventually people learn how to play the reality TV game but that’s not us yet, we’re still trying to figure it out,” Jessi Ngatikaura tells the BBC. “So you’re getting to see the real us.”
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What started off as a hobby has now become a job and the women speak openly on the show about the amount of money they make from reality TV and brand deals.
“It is totally our job now but we chose this and we could all walk away any time if we didn’t want to be part of it,” Jessi says.
Whitney Leavitt explains that “naturally dynamics will change when there’s more money and family involved and definitely some people get competitive” but reassures me the group are still friends off camera.
Across the two seasons of the show, Jessi and Whitney have had challenging storylines play out – Whitney is presented as the villain in season one and at the end of season two it is alleged Jessi has had an affair.
The pair speak candidly about the impact having your life watched and commented on by millions of people worldwide has had on them.
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“It’s been hard coming to terms with the fact we have no control over the narrative and you don’t ever really get over it,” Whitney explains. “But you have to accept that and let it go.”
As the show follows the lives of nine friends, it’s easy to see how some of them may create more drama for themselves in order to guarantee some screen time but Jessi insists that’s not the case and no one “plays up but naturally emotions are heightened”.
“We’re actually recording four or five days a week so we don’t know what will make the final edit.”
Jessi says her explosive Halloween party was not manufactured by producers and there is just “naturally so much drama that we don’t need to create more just for the show”.
‘Lots of resentment’
Given the intensity of drama and filming demands, the presence of strong aftercare is essential and both women praise the production for its duty of care standards.
“There are always therapists on hand and at first I was like why are Taylor and Jen having therapy all the time and now I’m having five or six hours of it a week,” Jessi confesses. “I’ve found it’s useful even if you’re not going through a hard time.”
Whitney also accessed some aftercare in season one after being presented as the villain of the show.
“It totally sucked being the villain and I was angry, had a lot of resentment and was really sad. There were so many overwhelming emotions for me but I was proud that instead of running away I stayed and had those hard conversations I didn’t want to have,” Whitney says.
Whitney was one of the members of the MomTok group that Taylor Frankie Paul publicly revealed was involved in “soft swinging”, something she denies and caused a rift to form in their friendship.
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There was some backlash to the reality TV show from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
The open discussions around sex, marital affairs and alcohol on the show has caused some backlash from the Mormon church.
“When the first trailer came out there was some backlash from the church because they were scared but actually we’re showing you how we live the Mormon life and we all live it differently,” Whitney says.
Jessi adds the docudrama shows how “we are all normal and everyday girls, not people wearing bonnets and churning butter like you might think”.
The women say that not only has the church come to accept the show, they are also helping young women think about their faith differently.
“We’ve definitely influenced people to question their faith, dive deeper into it or be more honest about it and I’ve had messages from some people saying that they’re joining the church because of me,” Jessi says.
While their religion plays an important part of their life, they’re keen to tell me that they are not the face of Mormonism.
“There are Mormons who still get upset about it but we’re just showing our version of it and I think that’s empowering as hopefully people can relate to our stories and struggles.”
Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who longs for the expansion of dirty soda chain Swig so we can feel better equipped to deal with #MomTok drama (IYKYK).
It’s been a week since the second season of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” dropped on Hulu, but die-hard reality TV watchers have likely already inhaled all nine episodes with the same unwavering commitment as the cast member trying to make us believe that her husband is related to Ben Affleck. (Spoiler alert: He is not. But we sure hope the actor watches while sipping on a 44-ounce iced coffee.) Taylor Frankie Paul, the self-proclaimed founder of #MomTok, the TikTok infuencer group that unites them, stopped by Guest Spot to talk about the new season of friendship and backstabbing.
Also in this week’s Screen Gab, our resident true-crime expert Lorraine Ali tells you why a docuseries about 1982’s unsolved Tylenol murder case is worth watching, and TV critic Robert Lloyd dives into the pleasures of watching professional surfers chase giant waves. Be sure to also find time to take in Lloyd’s tender tribute to “quintessential Regular Guy” George Wendt, who died this week at age 76; it’s linked below.
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Actor George Wendt, best known for his role as Norm in NBC’s long-running sitcom “Cheers,” holds a glass of beer in a barroom in Los Angeles on June 13, 1983.
Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times
Professional big-wave surfer Garrett McNamara in HBO’s “100 Foot Wave.”
(HBO)
“100 Foot Wave” (Max)
The continuing story of big-wave surfer Garrett McNamara, his family and friends becomes a trilogy with the third season of Chris Smith’s great HBO docuseries, crazy to contemplate yet beautiful to behold. Garrett, a maverick who put the Portuguese town of Nazaré on the map for its massive waves, set a record there, surfing a 78-footer — imagine an eight-story office building coming up behind you. But with the spot well-established and many records having been matched, the series has become less about competition than community and compulsion. (A middle-aged adolescent with a seemingly high tolerance for pain, Garrett, despite age and injury, cannot stop surfing.) Back again, with a cast of top big-wave surfers, are charismatic Nicole McNamara, Garrett’s level-headed wife and manager and mother to their three, one might say, “other children,” and her brother C.J. Macias, suffering from surfing PTSD after breaking his arm at Nazaré. The climax of the season is a surfing safari to Cortes Bank, 100 miles off the coast of Southern California, where an undersea island creates huge waves with no land in sight. — Robert Lloyd
A still showing Tylenol pills from the Netflix documentary “Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders.”
(Netflix)
“Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders” (Netflix)
If you’re not ready to switch to Advil, stop reading here. Netflix’s three-part, true-crime docuseries deftly chronicles one of the largest criminal investigations in U.S. history involving the 1982 murder of seven victims in Chicago who died after ingesting Extra Strength Tylenol tablets laced with cyanide. No one was ever charged with their murders.
Directed by Yotam Guendelman and Ari Pines (“Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes”), the series includes interviews with family of the victims, investigators, police and prosecutors who were directly involved in the case. Together their accounts recall the bizarre and terrifying nature of the crimes, the national panic caused by the tainted pills and the stunning lack of scrutiny on the medication’s manufacturers, Johnson & Johnson.
Private citizen James W. Lewis eventually emerged as one of two main suspects in the case, and he served 12 years in prison for sending an extortion note to Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 million to “stop the killing.” But authorities couldn’t pin the murders on Lewis. The documentary features an exclusive interview with Lewis before his death in July 2023 in which he proclaims his innocence yet appears to still revel in the media attention. The series also calls into question the culpability of Johnson & Johnson and the possibility that the poisoned capsules may have come straight from the factory before landing on drugstore shelves, where they were purchased by the unwitting victims. The murders ultimately led to an overhaul on the safety packaging we see on today’s over-the-counter medication.
Also worth your time is “This is the Zodiac Speaking,” Netflix’s riveting 2024 docuseries chronicling a family of siblings who were intimately involved with the top suspect in the still unsolved Zodiac killings of the 1960s and ‘70s. Sleep tight. — Lorraine Ali
Guest spot
A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching
Mayci Neeley and Taylor Frankie Paul in “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”
(Fred Hayes / Disney)
“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” feels like the new wave of soapy reality TV in the way it builds off social media personas to create ridiculously addictive drama. The Hulu reality series follows the lives of a group “momfluencers” who push against traditional Mormon norms — they’re the breadwinners, some are divorced, many drink, and at least one faced the dilemma of promoting a sex toy brand. Taylor Frankie Paul, the founding member of #MomTok, stopped by Guest Spot to discuss what makes great reality TV versus social media content and the scripted show that reminds her of her life. — Yvonne Villarreal
The women spend a lot of the season saying #MomTok has veered away from what it was initially conceived to be about — women supporting women. How do you think the reality show — this additional layer of sharing your personal life with an audience — has both helped its evolution and threatened its survival?
I think it’s threatened the survival because when you share, you get vulnerable and, unfortunately, when doing so it could eventually be used against you. With that being said, it helps the evolution by doing the same thing — being vulnerable can bring people closer together as well.
What have you learned makes great reality TV and how is that different from what makes great social media content?
What makes great reality TV is sharing as much as you can — both pretty and ugly — so they [followers] can see [the] bigger picture. What makes great social media content is leaving some mystery. It’s ironic that it’s opposite!
Viewers had a strong reaction to how your family engaged with you about your relationship with Dakota, particularly at the family BBQ. What struck you in watching it back?
Watching the scene at my family BBQ made us all cry because my family loves me dearly and the approach was maybe not the best (including myself), but everyone’s emotions were heightened. A lot was happening and all I remember is feeling overwhelming pain. But I do know my family has my best interest [in mind] even if that moment doesn’t show that. I know and that’s all that matters. I don’t like seeing the backlash because they are my village and I love them so much.
I notice that I come off intimidating or harsh, however I’m very soft and forgiving. I typically need to feel safe to show more of that. I feel like I’m always on defense, and I need to give people the benefit of the doubt — not everyone is going to cause pain; in other words, [I need to] open my heart more.
What have you watched recently that you’re recommending to everyone you know?
My current go-to watch is “Tell Me Lies” [Hulu]. I’m not a reality TV girl, ironically. I’m obsessed with this show. It’s so toxic and so good. It’s a lot like my life, so it’s entertaining to watch someone else’s life.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives returns to screens for a second season this week, taking viewers right back into the world of #MomTok
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The scandalous Secret Lives of Mormon Wives returns in 10 new episodes this week
One of last year’s most viral reality series is back this week as The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives returns for a brand-new season. The hit reality series plunges viewers into the world of #MomTok, following a group of mum influencers in Utah’s Mormon community.
During season one, their ‘scandalous’ world imploded when they were caught in the midst of a sex scandal that made international headlines. The eight-part series broke viewership records when it premiered in September, becoming the most-watched unscripted season premiere on Disney+ in its first four days on the platform.
Now it’s back for season two with 10 new episodes available to stream exclusively on Disney+ on Thursday, May 15. The series follows the lives of influencers Taylor Frankie Paul, Demi Engemann, Jen Affleck, Jessi Ngatikaura, Layla Taylor, Mayci Neeley, Mikayla Matthews and Whitney Leavitt.
A lot’s happened since we last saw the group, with Mikayla Matthews, Mayci Neeley and Jen Affleck all announcing their pregnancies. Elsewhere, Taylor took to social media to confirm she is no longer dating Dakota. Season two will see new cast member Miranda McWhorter re-joining the group.
Disney+ now costs as little as £4.99 a month, but members can get 12 months for the price of 10 by paying for a year upfront on the ad-free Standard or Premium plans.
Disney+ is the only place to stream hit shows like Rivals, The Bear and Shōgun, plus blockbuster franchises like Star Wars and Marvel.
The official synopsis reads: “The scandalous world of Mormon #MomTok is back and bigger than ever. When an original swinger from their infamous sex scandal makes a surprise return, friendships threaten to unravel as secrets, lies, and allegations explode.
“In a battle for the soul of #MomTok, will betrayal shatter the sisterhood, or will the truth set them free?”
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives centres around a group of influencers in Utah
Following the success of season one, Disney+ confirmed The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives will return for 20 new episodes, suggesting a third season is already in the works. The latest instalment follows the return of Molly-Mae: Behind it All, the Love Island star’s hit docuseries that returned to Prime Videoearlier this month.
Disney+ dropped the final trailer for The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives in April, with fans flooding the comments in anticipation. One fan said: “I’m so ready for this wild new season.” Another said: “Finally, I just watched the entire first season and it was fire. I’m so excited for the new season.”
A third said: “I need this yesterday. ”Not everyone will be tuning in though, as other YouTube comments said ‘Why do people watch this’ and ‘None of the stuff seen in the show is real’. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives season two will be available exclusively on Disney+ from May 15.
