Analysis: Fans expected the show, which long embraced controversy and difficult conversations, to address the disturbing allegations against Taylor Frankie Paul. Instead, it delivered a nothingburger.

When I began watching the fifth season of Hulu’s The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives last week, I was on edge. 

The hit reality show, which has released four other seasons since 2024, follows a cast of young Mormon mom-influencers—also known as MomTok—living in Utah. Taylor Frankie Paul, a hotheaded, 32-year-old mother of three, has been The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ (Mormon Wives) unofficial main character since Season 1, after she infamously revealed that she and her ex-husband had done “soft-swinging” with a few other couples.

Season 5 chronicles the aftermath of Paul filming her season of The Bachelorette, an ABC show that also streams on Hulu, from January to March 2026—a move that some fans and former contestants were excited about because Paul was the first Bachelorette lead who didn’t come from a previous season of The Bachelor. Her casting had the potential to revive a dying franchise.

And then, a video leaked. 

In March, just days before Paul’s season was set to premiere, the celebrity gossip site TMZ published a video from 2023 in which Paul can be seen pushing and kicking Dakota Mortensen, the father of her youngest child. In the most disturbing moment of the video, Paul throws a stool at Mortensen, and her daughter (whose father, Tate Paul, is not on the show), wails. 

The resulting criminal indictment said the child was hit by the stool. Paul ultimately pleaded down to one aggravated assault charge. As part of the deal, the rest of the charges, including one count of child abuse with injury, were dropped.

Paul reportedly does not have primary custody of any of her children.

Law enforcement opened two other investigations earlier this year after Mortensen contacted police about alleged domestic violence by Paul in 2024 and filed for a restraining order, and following an incident where both Mortensen and Paul accused each other of abuse in a February 2026 incident. 

In April, Paul was granted a temporary protective order against Mortensen, and the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office said it would not file additional charges against Paul related to the 2026 domestic violence investigations. Mortensen was also granted a temporary restraining order against Paul. 

After the 2023 video made headlines, ABC canceled Paul’s season of The Bachelorette. 

Mormon Wives had already paused production due to the February 2026 incident. (In 2023, Mormon Wives had an 11-month gap between Taylor’s arrest for domestic violence in the presence of a child, among other offenses, after the very incident depicted in the leaked video and the filming of Season 1’s second episode. Paul still returned to the show.) 

And just this week, one of Mormon Wives’ original cast members, Mikayla Matthews, announced she would no longer be filming the show. Matthews cited her own childhood abuse—which she’s discussed at length on-screen—and suggested that her departure in the middle of........

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