&34;The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives&34; star is bound to shake up the longrunning reality series. Who is Taylor Frankie Paul? All about her journey from MomTok

"The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" star is bound to shake up the long-running reality series.

Who is Taylor Frankie Paul? All about her journey from #MomTok and Mormon Wives to The Bachelorette

"The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" star is bound to shake up the long-running reality series.

By Randall Colburn

Randall Colburn

Randall Colburn is a former editor at **. He left EW in 2023.

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September 10, 2025 4:41 p.m. ET

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Taylor Frankie Paul will be ABC's next 'Bachelorette'. Credit:

Disney/Michael Kirchoff

- Taylor Frankie Paul has been announced as ABC's next* *Bachelorette.

- The social media star and #MomTok co-founder courted controversy in 2022 amid a swinging scandal in her Mormon community.

- She currently stars on the Emmy-nominated Hulu hit *The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives*.

God has smiled upon the *Bachelor* franchise.

On Wednesday, Sept. 10, ABC revealed that *The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives* star Taylor Frankie Paul will lead the next season of *The Bachelorette*. This came as something of a surprise for fans of the reality juggernaut, as it typically casts spurned singles from previous seasons of *The Bachelor*.

Paul has no history with the *Bachelor* franchise, but *Mormon Wives* airs on Hulu, which, like ABC, is owned by Disney. And, as **'s Kristen Baldwin noted when reporting on Paul's casting, the company seems to be in its "synergy era."

That much was obvious during the latest season of *Mormon Wives*, which was rocked by a cheating scandal that intersected with *another* Hulu reality series, *Vanderpump Villa*. The news also follows two other *Mormon Wives* stars, Jen Affleck and Whitney Leavitt, joining the next season of *Dancing With the Stars*.

Let's set aside the synergy for a moment and get to know Paul, who will arrive at the *Bachelor* mansion with plenty of her own relationship baggage — and one heck of a scandal.**

Who is Taylor Frankie Paul?

Taylor Frankie Paul at an event celebrating season 2 of 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives' on May 9, 2025 in Los Angeles.

Disney/Stewart Cook

Paul is a 31-year-old social media influencer and mother of three who lives in Utah. She rose to fame circa 2022 as a founding member of #MomTok, a social media cohort led in part by Paul and several of the young mothers in her friend group. Together, the influencers shared choreographed dances, beauty routines, comedy bits, and confessionals about their lives as Mormon women.

#MomTok's prominence as Mormon influencers brought them under fire by many in their community, and that criticism intensified amid a "soft swinging" scandal that went public in 2022.

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Following the scandal, Paul's notoriety skyrocketed online, leading to her and the rest of #MomTok coming together for a Hulu reality series, *The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives*. It debuted in September 2024 and scored an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program. In May 2025, it returned for a second season, with a third in production.

"I go to church... It's really nobody's place to tell me that I can't go to church because I sin," Paul said in a 2024 interview with the *Salt Lake Tribune*. "It's something between the church and me. And it hasn't come to me, so I'm going to keep going to church until it says otherwise."

She added, "A man is not going to tell me what to do, what to wear or what to say. And in our religion, it's true men hold the priesthood. I feel like it is evolving and changing a little bit more, and that's part of what we're trying to show in this series."**

What was the Taylor Frankie Paul scandal?

Taylor Frankie Paul, Mayci Neeley, and Jessi Ngatikaura on 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives'.

#MomTok's swinging scandal first came to light in June 2022, when Paul announced on TikTok that she was splitting from her then-husband due to her violating the parameters they'd set around "soft swinging."

Soft swinging, according to Paul, allowed for intimacy with other partners so long as they didn't "go all the way," per PEOPLE. As she put it to her followers, she "did step out of that agreement."

The following month, she revealed that she was dating Dakota Mortensen, and just a few months later announced that she was pregnant with his child.

What made it all the more scandalous was that Paul revealed that soft swinging was common among her Mormon friend group. "Everyone has hooked up with like everyone," she said at the time, per PEOPLE.

Since then, others involved in the scandal have spoken up, with one women, Makenna Gibbons, alleging that Paul was partly to blame for her divorce. Paul denied the claim, saying that Makenna "was one of the instigators and [sent] HER husband to get me."

Why was Taylor Frankie Paul arrested?

Dakota Mortensen and Taylor Frankie Paul at the 'Secret Lives of Mormon Wives' season 2 reunion.

Disney/Fred Hayes

In February 2023, Paul was arrested on misdemeanor charges of assault, criminal mischief, and commission of domestic violence in the presence of a child, according to a statement released by the Herriman Police Department.

In August of that year, the *Salt Lake Tribune* reported that Paul pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, with the other charges being dismissed. Per the outlet, the incident involved Mortensen, her then-boyfriend, and reportedly saw Paul throwing her phone and "heavy metal chairs" at him in the presence of her two children. One of her children was allegedly struck in the head by an object thrown by Paul. The incident was featured and discussed throughout the first season of *The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives*.

In a TikTok following the incident, Paul said, "​​As much as I wish that night had went differently, I felt like hitting rock bottom actually helped me in some ways. Made me seek help that I wasn't getting at the time."

She also addressed the incident in a September 2025 appearance on the *Call Her Daddy* podcast, calling it the hardest time of her life.

"I never really even think about me in that situation. Obviously, it's my kids because they were involved, they were in the house," she said. "But in that moment that we see on screen, I see a lot of pain. And I didn't have any tools at that time, so I was very lost."**

Who is Taylor Frankie Paul's ex-husband?

Paul married Tate Paul in 2016. The pair welcomed their first child, Indy, in 2017. Their son, Ocean, was born in 2020. They separated in 2022 amid fallout from their public soft swinging scandal.

Unlike Paul, Tate has kept a low profile since the scandal. He's currently married to Bailey Paul, an esthetician, and the pair have started a family.

In a 2024 interview with *Today*, Paul said she remains close with Tate. "He's still going to always be an important figure in their life and mine. I see him on a weekly basis, talk to him daily," she explained.

Who is Dakota Mortensen?

Dakota Mortensen and Taylor Frankie Paul on 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives'.

Disney/Fred Hayes

Paul began dating Dakota Mortensen after leaving her husband in the summer of 2022. Since then, the pair have engaged in a tumultuous on-again, off-again relationship that has been the focus of many of Paul's storylines on *The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives*. They share one child, a boy named Ever True, born in 2024.

According to PEOPLE, Mortensen is a real estate agent and the owner of Basin Tiling, a tiling company that operates in Utah and Idaho.

Fans have been speculating about the state of the pair's relationship all summer, but the reveal that Paul is the new Bachelorette cements where things stand. She confirmed on *Call Her Daddy* that it's over between her and Mortensen, and that she was the one to definitively end it. When describing the breakup, which she said will be explored in *Mormon Wives*' third season, Paul shared that "there was no pain like it."

She continued, "If I'm being honest, I did wanna end up with him. That was no secret to anybody. It still wasn't a secret, and I'll always admit that to whoever asked me, Did I love him? Absolutely. I had a baby with him. I wanted to be with him. But it just did not work out. There were certain things that were forever closing for me."

So, did Dakota know beforehand that Paul would be rebounding on* The Bachelorette*? "I have not confirmed it with him. So I don't know if he knows or if he knew I had the opportunity," she said. "So he'll know Wednesday."**

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