Production is set to resume on Season 5 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, though the entire cast of the Hulu series will reportedly not be participating when cameras begin rolling.
As The Ashley previously told you, filming on Season 5 of ‘Mormon Wives’ was paused last month due to an alleged incident in February between now-former #MomTok leader Taylor Frankie Paul and her ex-boyfriend/baby daddy Dakota Mortensen, which spurred a domestic assault investigation into the exes.
While Taylor and Dakota’s legal issues have yet to be resolved, People reports that ‘Mormon Wives’ will resume filming without the former couple. However, in a comment posted to social media on Tuesday, Taylor claimed that she had been told otherwise.
“Interesting, that’s not the call I got,” she wrote, according to Us Weekly.
While it remains to be seen if Taylor will reunite with the rest of #MomTok when ‘Mormon Wives’ resumes filming, cast member Jessi Draper took to Instagram on Tuesday to seemingly celebrate the fact that cameras are picking up again.
“MomTok back together hallelujah,” Jessi captioned the photo, which appeared to be taken during an outing with co-stars Layla Taylor and Mayci Neeley, who were both tagged in the photo. (Mayci later reposted the image to her own Instagram Story.)
On Monday, Jessi and Mayci also appeared alongside ‘Mormon Wives’ cast member Jen Affleck in a video posted to Jen’s social media. In her post, Jen– who, as of now, is the only OG cast member slated to star in the ‘Mormon Wives’ spinoff currently filming in Orange County, California– reminded fans that she and her co-stars are, “just doing our best just like you, it just happens to be on reality TV and online for millions to see.”
As The Ashley previously reported, Jessi revealed last month on an episode of Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast that production actually initiated a first “pause” in filming after the cast and producers learned that Dakota had filed a police report for the February incident between himself and Taylor.
While cameras briefly “picked back up,” the cast called for another pause after learning that footage was being released from the 2023 incident between the exes, which showed Taylor physically attacking Dakota in the presence of at least one of the children she shares with ex-husband Tate Paul. (Taylor’s daughter was accidentally hit by a metal stool that Taylor threw at Dakota, which can also be seen in the video. The shocking video led ABC to pull the plug on Taylor’s season of The Bachelorette, just days before it was set to premiere.)
Jessi explained that she and the rest of the ‘Mormon Wives’ cast were “unanimously on the same page” regarding the second pause in filming, insisting that they didn’t know the full story and wanted to avoid potentially saying the wrong thing on camera.
“ … and we didn’t want to have to process all this information for the first time and then also be speaking about it,” she said. “So we just thought, like, for everyone’s mental health, let’s take a beat and let’s not film right now. And that’s probably the best thing for everyone in this situation.”
Jessi also noted on the podcast that she and the rest of the ‘Mormon Wives’ cast “all knew it was a toxic cycle” with Taylor and Dakota, though she claimed no one really knew the extent of it until recently.
Taylor and Dakota currently have temporary restraining orders in place against each other, as well as a custody agreement for their son, Ever, that gives Dakota temporary custody of the two-year-old, and Taylor eight hours of supervised visitation each week. The custody agreement will remain in place until the exes’ court hearing later this month.
(Photos: Hulu; Instagram)
7 Responses
I have never watched this show so forgive me. If they are Mormon wives than why was she on the Bachelorette? And obviously she was still in a relationship with this guy. Just don’t understand the purpose of the show.
My guess is that they are biding their time hoping that her DV habits are forgotten by the media. They will have her back as some grand redemption arc where she can spout bullshit that she truly doesn’t believe and has no attention of applying to her own life. She will say she has learned so much through this and it has made her so strong and blah blah blah. Then she will throw in that she is standing for victims of domestic violence. (Just in case we forgot her lawyer trying to paint her as the victim and that she was just retaliating against Dakota)
Taylor lives in Taylor’s world and in her world she can do whatever she wants and she is never wrong. I see people on Reddit, tik tok and Instagram praising her for her resilience and strength. Evidently they don’t watch the show and didn’t see the same video we did of her unhinged psycho ass.
So they’ll pull her but not the groomer over on TLC? I understand different networks but damn. There needs to be more outrage over there.
Who is the groomer?
Fallen or whatever her name is from unexpected
thank you, I saw on another site where she just got arrested.
If she is back, I am out. She should NEVER be on any show again. We all saw her in full blown DV video, doing that while her daughter was in the same room. She is dangerous and toxic as hell.