![\"Taylor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/taylor-frankie-paul-appears-at-the-oscars-in-los-angeles-on-IANZS6IE55CQBCHIBBJDYD5HJA.jpg\")
<\/p>\nABC has scrubbed the upcoming season of The Bachelorette, starring Taylor Frankie Paul, three days before its planned premiere, citing a newly released video from 2023 in which she appears to punch, kick and throw chairs at her former partner as her young daughter watches and cries.<\/p>\n
The cancellation of the already filmed 22nd season of the reality show is unprecedented. While ABC parent company Disney cited the older video, the move comes amid a current domestic violence investigation involving Paul and Dakota Mortensen, father to a son who is the youngest of her three children.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn light of the newly released video just surfaced today, we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of The Bachelorette at this time, and our focus is on supporting the family,\u201d a statement from Disney Entertainment Television said.<\/p>\n
A Paul representative responded that she has been abused for years while remaining silent about it.<\/p>\n
Before her Bachelorette casting, Paul had already become a reality star through The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, whose production is paused.<\/p>\n
In 2023 video published by TMZ Thursday, Mortensen is apparently trying to stave off Paul with one hand one while he shoots phone video. She is shown punching him, kicking him then throwing three chairs at him while repeatedly screaming \u201cYou did this!”<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing you know how to do is hurt me,\u201d Mortensen says, while repeatedly pleading with Paul and reminding her that her daughter was watching. A child can be heard sobbing, screaming and shouting \u201cmommy!\u201d Paul’s daughter would have been about 5 at the time.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Taylor Frankie Paul appears at the Oscars in Los Angeles on March 15, 2026. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
The video was consistent with Paul’s arrest in 2023, when she was charged with aggravated assault and other offences, including domestic violence in the presence of a child. She pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour assault charge; the other counts were dismissed.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Paul said in a statement Thursday that she is \u201cvery grateful for ABC\u2019s support as she prioritises her family\u2019s safety and security. After years of silently suffering extensive mental and physical abuse as well as threats of retaliation, Taylor is finally gaining the strength to face her accuser and taking steps to ensure that she and her children are protected from any further harm\u201d.<\/p>\n
The statement said \u201cTaylor has remained silent out of fear of further abuse, retaliation, and public shaming\u201d and that she is now \u201cexploring all of her options, seeking support, and preparing to own and share her story\u201d.<\/p>\n
A police spokesperson in Draper City, Utah, told People magazine earlier this week that there was an open domestic violence investigation of Paul and Mortensen, and that both have made allegations.<\/p>\n
Mortensen’s representatives didn’t immediately answer requests for comment.<\/p>\n
ABC will air an American Idol rerun Sunday instead.<\/p>\n
Paul was promoting The Bachelorette as recently as Wednesday on Good Morning America and on the red carpet before Sunday\u2019s Oscars.<\/p>\n
She was an unusual choice to helm The Bachelorette, the reality TV institution that started in 2003. Most leads are cast from previous runners-up from The Bachelor.<\/p>\n
Her selection instead offered synergy with The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives on Hulu, also owned by Disney. In a statement confirming her Bachelorette casting in October, ABC credited Paul with “igniting \u2018MomTok\u2019 and going viral for pulling back the curtain on Salt Lake\u2019s soft-swinging scene”.<\/p>\n
Paul became known as an influencer in the #MomTok community, a group of women from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sharing their lives on TikTok. She made news when she announced, in 2022, that she had \u201cstepped out\u201d of an agreement with her husband on relationships with other couples, and they were getting divorced.<\/p>\n
Season 4 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives was released last week. Filming of Season 5 has been put on pause.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a decision that all of us girls came up with,\u201d Paul\u2019s co-star Mikayla Matthews said Wednesday on Instagram. \u201cWe didn\u2019t feel comfortable filming with everything that was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul posted on Instagram in December that filming had wrapped on The Bachelorette.<\/p>\n
‘Trying to shake things up’<\/p>\n
Her casting was essentially an experiment gone wrong, said Kate Casey, a former crisis communications specialist who has covered unscripted television in more than 1500 episodes of her podcast Reality Life with Kate Casey.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they were trying to shake things up, and it makes sense because the ecosystem is saturated with dating shows like F-Boy Island and Love Island that push the boundaries and The Bachelor and The Bachelorette historically have been saccharine,\u201d said Casey.<\/p>\n
Casey says network executives probably believed casting Paul would also tap into her 6.1 million-strong TikTok following.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thinking was probably, \u2018We\u2019re going to get a new audience\u2019, and the new audience is really the most coveted in all of entertainment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
![\"Where](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/where-to-get-help-for-domestic-violence-W7JNDV72AZHRTGRDTL244P7VN4.png\")
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Where to get help for domestic violence. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ABC has scrubbed the upcoming season of The Bachelorette, starring Taylor Frankie Paul, three days before its planned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,64,69,417],"class_list":["post-338555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-north-america","tag-nz","tag-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}