{"id":349721,"date":"2026-03-20T20:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/349721\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T20:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:43:08","slug":"the-bachelorette-bet-big-on-controversy-is-it-any-surprise-it-blew-up-in-their-faces-reality-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/349721\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bachelorette bet big on controversy. Is it any surprise it blew up in their faces? | Reality TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week was not a good one to be a Disney executive. Days ago, reports began circulating that Taylor Frankie Paul, the star of the Hulu series Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and ABC\u2019s upcoming The Bachelorette, was involved in a domestic violence investigation stemming from a February incident with her ex-partner, Dakota Mortensen. (Disney is the parent company of Hulu and ABC.) By Tuesday, multiple outlets reported that production on the fifth season of Mormon Wives was down, as cast members refused to interact with Paul. The 31-year-old TikTok turned reality star, meanwhile, soldiered on with a gauntlet of Bachelorette promotional duties, speaking vaguely about \u201cheavy times\u201d. But on Thursday, video leaked online of a domestic violence incident from 2023; footage showed an intoxicated Paul throwing metal barstools at Mortensen and accidentally hitting her five-year-old daughter. By day\u2019s end, the network cancelled the whole season of The Bachelorette<\/a>, heavily advertised and filmed in its entirety last year, three days before its premiere.<\/p>\n

You could say that this mess, which has drawn the attention of people previously unaware of MomTok or the Bachelorette, is sad, troubling or too complex for entertainment. (It is all of the above.) What you cannot say is that this is a surprise. To anyone with even a cursory understanding of the Mormon Wives franchise or time to Google, this debacle is sadly predictable \u2013 the likely result of banking on a famously divisive reality star to rejuvenate a flagging franchise, and the latest example of legacy media overlooking red flags for influencer clout. To be clear: Paul\u2019s actions are her own, but this debacle \u2013 which will reportedly cost ABC tens of millions of dollars<\/a> \u2013 is on the company.<\/p>\n

The casting of Paul, who shot to viral fame in 2022 for a \u201csoft-swinging\u201d scandal among Mormon influencers, as the first Bachelorette without pre-existing ties to the franchise was supposed to be a savvy bit of Disney synergy: bring the dynamite star of a Hulu franchise that regularly out-ranks The Kardashians, along with her massive social media following, to a languishing ABC franchise. Other Mormon wives have appeared on ABC\u2019s Dancing with the Stars, but Paul, the Mormon Wives phenomenon\u2019s<\/a> raison d\u2019\u00eatre, seemed to have the weight of the entire Bachelorette franchise on her shoulders. As one tabloid headline put it<\/a>: \u201cEntire Bachelor Franchise \u2018Could Be CANCELED\u2019 If Bachelorette Taylor Frankie Paul Doesn\u2019t \u2018Save Embarrassing Ratings\u201d.<\/p>\n

So tantalizing was this possibility that Bachelorette producers broke many of the franchise\u2019s rules to make it happen. Unlike all prior contestants, Paul was allowed to keep her phone during production (in part to communicate with her three young children, in part to post behind-the-scenes content). The sacred \u201chere for the right reasons\u201d dictat was allowed to become fodder for Mormon Wives, where her ongoing on-and-off relationship with Mortensen remains a major plot point; the latest season, which aired this month, hinged in part on Paul sleeping with Mortensen the night before the Bachelorette started filming.<\/p>\n

The show also overlooked or embraced numerous red flags: that Paul seemed, by her own admission, to go on the show not to find love but to escape a toxic relationship, and most notably that 2023 incident. The horrifying video that caused ABC to actually renege on the season is far from new information. Police bodycam footage from that night, in which Paul is arrested, literally opens the first season of Mormon Wives. (Paul pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, and is serving three years\u2019 probation.) Paul has discussed the incident in interviews \u2013 \u201cone of my lowest nights,\u201d she told<\/a> the podcast Call Her Daddy in September; last year, she joked about \u201cthrowing things\u201d on TikTok. Almost every detail in the video has been previously reported or alleged, long before Paul was cast as the Bachelorette. The only difference is that now we\u2019re seeing it.<\/p>\n

The Bachelor franchise is no stranger to controversy over problematic people, from participants who posted racist tweets<\/a> to several cast members accused of domestic violence<\/a>, stalking<\/a>, or violating temporary restraining orders<\/a> before coming on the show. But those clear vetting issues \u2013 either a failure of research or a bet on drama \u2013 pale in comparison to the decision to cast someone whose literal career is creating riveting reality melodrama for cameras. Spiky, strikingly vulnerable, prone to oversharing and outbursts, Paul is capable of reality TV magic; there\u2019s a reason she is popular. But there was always a major risk in banking so heavily on a reality star whose most enduring and endearing quality is a tendency to burn it all down; a person famous for her poor romantic decisions; a mom of three who, at least according to a New York Magazine profile<\/a> that had to be rapidly rewritten for its Friday publication, only processes feelings on camera, hasn\u2019t had a break from filming in months and is experiencing a mental breakdown.<\/p>\n

Disney and ABC made a bet that Paul\u2019s tumultuous past would either blow over or be worth the attention boost to its flagging franchise, and that her instability would attract viewers rather than repel them. It sure looks like they assumed the magnetism of a seemingly very unwell person, in a clearly toxic relationship, was worth the investment; the network essentially bet that all of that could be maintained or managed enough for the money to flow. That bet has now failed spectacularly. But it was always clear they never should have made it in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week was not a good one to be a Disney executive. Days ago, reports began circulating that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-349721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}