The Hollywood Reporter has learned that production on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives will resume after an internal investigation centered around Taylor Frankie Paul and Dakota Mortensen. However, casting details have not been made available, leaving the fate of Paul's involvement in the show uncertain. Additionally, there is no specified timeline for when cameras will return to the set.
The news of the show's resumption comes just a day before Hulu's Gel Real House, which will feature an unscripted slate from the streamer and ABC. It was reported in mid-March that the Emmy-nominated Hulu series had halted filming on its upcoming fifth season due to an alleged domestic incident involving Paul and her ex.
At the time, a spokesperson for the Draper City Police Department told People that there was an ongoing "domestic assault investigation" between Paul and Mortensen, adding that "allegations have been made in both directions" and that "contact was made with involved parties on [February] 24th and 25th."
After the alleged incident became public, a video of the events leading up to Paul's previous 2023 arrest was leaked, showing the reality star throwing barstools at Mortensen while her daughter was present. Hours later, ABC decided to pull season 22 of The Bachelorette, three days before its scheduled premiere on March 22.
The next day after the video was published on TMZ, NBC News obtained audio of a Zoom call held on March 7 with the Mormon Wives cast and three Disney executives, where they voiced concerns about continuing the series with Paul amid the investigation. THR confirmed that Mormon Wives production launched their own investigation into the conflicting claims; filming was to remain paused until concluded.
On March 25, NBC News reported that Paul was under investigation for an alleged third domestic violence incident, also involving her ex Mortensen, that allegedly occurred in 2024. (All three alleged incidents have involved Paul and Mortensen.) However, on April 7, Paul filed for a temporary restraining order against Mortensen, which she was granted. In Paul's filing, which THR obtained, she recounted several alleged abusive incidents involving Mortensen, including a February 23 event where she says he "became physically violent" and slammed her head on the dashboard of his truck. (The filing included photos of Paul's bruises and screenshots of text messages between the two.)
On April 14, the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office revealed that they would not pursue new charges against Paul following separate investigations led by the Draper Police Department and West Jordan Police Department.
While cameras were not rolling when Paul's season of The Bachelorette was pulled by ABC, there is more news from the Mormon Wives cast that has not been filmed amid the production pause. Notably, Jessi Draper's husband filed for divorce (on the same day Paul's season was yanked from air), and Draper was also spotted out with Miranda Hope's ex-husband.
The businesswoman and reality star went on Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast on March 25 to discuss her split from her husband and also spoke about the recent headlines surrounding Paul and Mormon Wives. Draper spoke about the filming pause, clarifying that there were two breaks in production on season five. She explained that the first pause came from production "when we found out he filed a police report. So this was before it broke," referring to news that a second domestic assault investigation was initiated by the Draper City Police Department following a February incident involving Paul and Mortensen.
The second pause in production came from the Mormon Wives cast, Draper said. "A little bit before news broke, but we knew it probably was going to, us girls decided, so we went to production and the network and they were all so supportive," she said. "Me and the girls, we did decide to stop filming when we found this out, because we were starting to hear things a little bit before it leaked, and we just didn't want to be filming and say the wrong thing on camera, not knowing the whole story yet." She continued, "We didn't want to have to process all this information for the first time and then also be speaking about it. So we just thought for everyone's mental health, let's take a beat and not film right now."
Draper admitted that she does not know what all of the news circulating around Paul would mean for the future of the Hulu show but that they were waiting for things to settle before jumping back into filming. However, she noted that she would potentially feel comfortable picking up cameras since the information is now public. She explained, "I think now we’re at a point where we’re like, ‘OK, the world knows and the info’s out there, and so now we’re good and we can speak on the things we know and we can talk about it in a real way,’ rather than before, we were like, ‘We don’t even know if this is gonna get out,’ so we didn’t know if we could even talk about it when we were filming. Now, we can."
