{"id":340961,"date":"2026-03-21T16:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T16:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/340961\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T16:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T16:27:09","slug":"in-casting-taylor-frankie-paul-for-bachelorette-abc-was-playing-with-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/340961\/","title":{"rendered":"In casting Taylor Frankie Paul for ‘Bachelorette,’ ABC was playing with fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cWhat were they thinking?\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the question on everyone\u2019s mind of \u201cThe Bachelorette\u2019s\u201d producers, ABC, Hulu and the Disney legal team. <\/p>\n

On Thursday, ABC announced that the heavily promoted new season of \u201cThe Bachelorette,\u201d scheduled to premiere Sunday, would not be moving forward<\/a> \u201cat this time.\u201d Why not? Well, the Bachelorette in question, \u201cThe Secret Lives of Mormon Wives\u201d star Taylor Frankie Paul, was the subject of a second domestic assault investigation as a damning video from her first, in which she pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, made the rounds courtesy of TMZ. Filming for Season 5 of \u201cMormon Wives,\u201d which Paul executive produces, was also abruptly halted.<\/p>\n

The disturbing video is hard to watch. Not so much because Paul puts on-again, off-again partner Dakota Mortensen into a headlock and then pelts him with metal bar stools \u2014 sadly, this is a scene that would not be out of place on many reality shows \u2014 but because a small child is in the room. After one of the stools bounces toward the camera, Paul\u2019s then-5-year-old daughter Indy begins crying and Mortensen later says \u201chelp your child.\u201d Even as the child cries \u201cMommy,\u201d Paul continues on her rampage. When Mortensen belatedly attempts to help Indy, Paul screams at him to \u201cget away from my child.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while \u201cBachelorette\u201d producers and Disney lawyers may not have seen the video, which was introduced in the 2023 court case, the police report makes it clear that Indy was injured during the incident, noting a \u201cgoose egg\u201d on the child\u2019s head. Paul was charged with aggravated assault, child abuse and domestic violence in the presence of a child. Paul, who said she had been drinking before the incident, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated assault, a third-degree felony. The other charges were dismissed and Paul, who was put on probation, submitted a plea of abeyance. In August 2026, a court will review the assault charge and, if Paul complies with the terms of her probation, could lessen it to a misdemeanor. <\/p>\n

Should a new criminal charge be made after the current investigation, all bets are off.<\/p>\n

So was it the emergence of the video or the possibility of a felony conviction that caused ABC to put this season of \u201cThe Bachelorette\u201d on ice? Does the reason matter?<\/p>\n

ABC knew that Paul had been charged in a domestic violence incident that led to the injury of her child and somehow thought she would make an excellent Bachelorette<\/a> anyway. <\/p>\n

What were they thinking? <\/p>\n

\""The <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bachelorette\u201d Season 22 billboard starring Taylor Frankie Paul is seen on Thursday \u2014 the day her season was axed. <\/p>\n

(HIGHFIVE \/ Bauer-Griffin \/ GC Images via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

They were thinking that audiences like messy \u201cauthenticity,\u201d and it doesn\u2019t get any more authentically messy than 31-year-old Paul, who climbed to social media fame by founding MomTok, a TikTok community of married Mormon women<\/a> dancing, joking and pushing against the traditions and restrictions of their faith. Pretty and profane, funny and frank, Paul amassed a large following. After Paul discussed the \u201csoft swinging\u201d she and her husband engaged in with other Mormon couples, the group went viral and led to the creation of \u201cThe Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,\u201d the first episode of which was titled \u201cThe First Book of Taylor.\u201d <\/p>\n

Chronicling the fallout from the \u201csoft-swinging\u201d scandal, the first season built on Paul\u2019s frank discussions of her chaotic life; it was Hulu\u2019s most-watched unscripted season premiere of 2024. The subsequent three seasons, in which the MomTokers deal with the pressures of fame, their romantic relationships and all manner of internal \u201cMean Girls\u201d drama, have continued to grow the show\u2019s audience even as ratings for \u201cThe Bachelor\u201d franchise flagged. <\/p>\n

To the algorithm, or a numbers cruncher, the hopes that Paul could bring some of the \u201cMormon Wives\u201d magic to \u201cThe Bachelorette\u201d might make sense.<\/p>\n

Except Paul isn\u2019t magic; she waves her red flags high and proud, and the good folks at ABC, Hulu and Disney charged at them with the oblivious desperation of so many trapped, maddened bulls. (It usually does not end well for the bulls either.)<\/p>\n

The \u201csoft swinging\u201d led to her divorce from first husband, Tate Paul, with whom she has two children, including Indy. As chronicled on \u201cMormon Wives,\u201d she began her turbulent relationship with Mortensen, with whom she shares a young son, Ever. Her 2023 arrest was a storyline \u2014 she called it one of the rock bottoms of her life, though in a recently resurfaced TikTok video, she brags about throwing things and being arrested \u2014 and in Season 4 she was found in bed with Mortensen, with whom she had allegedly broken up, on the morning she was supposed to fly to L.A. to film \u201cThe Bachelorette.\u201d (She caught a later flight.) The season finale ended with the possibility that Paul might be pregnant.<\/p>\n

Reality cross-pollination has become so increasingly popular \u2014 ABC\u2019s \u201cDancing With the Stars\u201d couldn\u2019t live without it, and Peacock\u2019s hit show \u201cThe Traitors\u201d is built on it \u2014 that there seems to be little thought given to the apples-versus-oranges fact that not every reality show is the same. \u201cBachelorette\u201d producers not only ignored the misgivings voiced by their own fans, many of whom did not think Paul would be approaching the show as a truly single woman searching for love, they reportedly extended her many freedoms denied other participants, including unmonitored use of her phone during filming. <\/p>\n

They clearly wanted the ratings miracle that Paul\u2019s unvarnished wildness had lent \u201cMormon Wives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Casting for maximum drama is a driving force in many reality shows. Even if one accepts that perfectly reasonable people are happy to live in a bubble with strangers for months in hopes of achieving love, fame or a cash prize, someone inevitably is cast to bring the crazy, er, conversation-sparking personality. And like all of television, reality is facing splintered and waning audiences so the decibel level of that conversation-sparking is often dialed way up. <\/p>\n

Hence the ascendancy of Taylor Frankie Paul, queen of MomTok and \u201cMormon Wives,\u201d a woman known for her lack of filter and habit of putting it all out there. For the purposes of our entertainment. <\/p>\n

There is, of course, no point in mentioning the many past, and often show-derailing, scandals of the genre \u2014 the suicides, the racism, the sexual assault, homophobia, bullying, pedophilia, infidelity and just general ghastliness that has arisen from the popularity of people sharing their \u201creal\u201d lives. Audiences connect with these shows, the messier the better. <\/p>\n

But, as it turns out, some messes are too big to leverage even for forgiving eyeballs of reality fans. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bachelor\u201d franchise should have known better. It\u2019s been around for almost a quarter-century and has suffered its fair share of scandals <\/a>during those years. But drafting a woman who was convicted of assault in an incident that harmed her own child, well, \u201cThe Bachelorette\u201d knew it was playing with fire. <\/p>\n

Clearly they hoped she would rekindle the dying embers of the show. <\/p>\n

Instead, she burnt it down. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat were they thinking?\u201d This is the question on everyone\u2019s mind of \u201cThe Bachelorette\u2019s\u201d producers, ABC, Hulu and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[6761,17704,2991,178020,2511,182190,156,4435,46376,179818,111,139,69,182189,68689,9644,6926,1305,17679,437],"class_list":["post-340961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-abc","tag-assault","tag-audience","tag-bachelorette","tag-child","tag-damning-video","tag-entertainment","tag-hulu","tag-mormon-wives","tag-mortensen","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paul-executive","tag-rating","tag-scandal","tag-season","tag-show","tag-taylor-frankie-paul","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340961","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=340961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}