Yahoo Lifestyle A Breakdown Of The Scandal Behind "The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives"
Reality TV can be stale, but The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives is a wild 8-episode ride. The show debuted on Hulu on September 6, 2024, following a group of Mormon wives in Provo, Utah, who brought #MomTok to the fore.
Taylor Frankie Paul is considered to be the one who spearheaded #MomTok before Camille Munday and Miranda McWhorter joined her as a trio to catapult this particular subset of TikTokers into fame.
However, these two don't appear in the show. The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives includes other prominent TikTok influencers, Layla Taylor, Mikayla Matthews, Whitney Leavitt, Jessi Ngatikaura, Demi Engemann, Mayci Neeley, and Jen Affleck joining Paul to round out the cast.
The #Momtok TikTok niche centered around these wives, who participated in dances and became influencers during the pandemic, marking a shift in Mormonism among the younger generation.
Ultimately, #MomTok is intended to allow Mormon mothers to come together without feeling judged. They flaunted seemingly wholesome and picture-perfect lives with their children and husbands.
However, the show's premise isn't necessarily the mundane reality show you'd expect from a group of Mormon wives. As explained by influencer Frankie Taylor Paul in the series debut episode, these are mothers and wives adapting their beliefs to a new platform.
"We were raised to be these housewives for the men, serving their every desire. Well, I'm like, 'f*ck this.' So I created MomTok. Started as a group of Mormon moms making TikToks. There was something freeing about it," Paul explained.
However, not everything was as it appeared online.
There's a level of transparency that comes with leading a TikTok community, and things took a turn when Paul announced her divorce from her husband, Tate Paul.
"In my twenties, getting divorced, started therapy, living on my own for the first time ever along with two little kids," she captioned a video on May 22. Shortly after, she shared another video with the caption, "My life falling apart. And I can’t even speak on why…without bringing them all down with me," accompanied by a visual of her moving boxes.
@taylorfrankiepaul / Via tiktok.com, @taylorfrankiepaul / Via tiktok.com
Without much context surrounding the divorce, Reddit began spreading several theories, per PEOPLE. In a matter of days, she was accused of being a "husband stealer" and a "cheater," among other things.
Eventually, Taylor Frankie jumped on TikTok Live and revealed what caused her separation, and it was much more shocking than anyone expected.
Paul revealed that the two participated in soft swinging – a term popularized by Taylor and described by therapist and sex educator Jillian Amodio as "a form of ethical non-monogamy, as long as all parties are aware and consenting."
The couple were basically in an open relationship with other members of their friend group.
"The agreement was…as long as we were both there and we saw it, and we knew it, it was okay, and the second it goes behind without each other, you’ve stepped out of the agreement,” she explained in a TikTok video in 2022. “And I did that.”
However, she added that most #MomTok wasn't involved; apparently, a few were. "No, guys, none of — well, not none, some — majority of #MomTok is not involved, just to clear that up," she added.
In the show, she described her and her ex-husband's situation as more of an orgy and admitted that she made out with every husband within their group of soft swingers. She called soft swinging, "when you just hook up but you don’t go all the way. "To be honest, we had an agreement, like all of us, and I did step out of that agreement," she said.
"The whole group was intimate with each other," she further explained.
"It wasn’t like I was going around like hooking up with my friend’s husband. It was like, we were at a party, I got belligerent, and we went and messed up by ourselves rather with whole group," she said during the TikTok live.
Though she insisted it was a "one-time thing," she admitted that she and the other party she was involved with "had feelings for each other."
So who exactly joined in on this "soft swinging" agreement among their group of friends?
@whitneyleavitt / Via tiktok.com
At this point, it's unclear since many of them have denied their involvement. Per Daily Mail, Miranda McWhorter and her now-estranged spouse, Chase, denied the rumors that they were into soft swinging. Some claimed that Miranda and Taylor fell out with each other after the former alleged that Taylor spread rumors that Chase caught feelings for her. Taylor also said that Camille Munday and her husband weren't involved, either, which Munday later confirmed. Other group members, Mayci Neeley, Victoria Zalic, and Whitney Leavitt, also denied being involved.
Still, Taylor did reveal in her bombshell TikTok live that three couples in their circle were getting a divorce, though one of them wasn't entirely related to the scandal. She didn't confirm who the couples were. However, Taylor suggested that their fans could easily figure it out.
The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives focuses on the aftermath of the scandal. The show sees the group, save for Miranda and Camille, reunite and try to rebuild their friend group while Whitney Leavitt takes on the newfound role of the group's leader.
Miranda and Camille declined to appear in the show, hoping to put this saga behind them and protect their families. "Camille and I had multiple interviews, or calls, with [Hulu,]” Miranda revealed on The Weekly Trash podcast in August. “She and I agreed that it just [gave us,] like, a pit in our stomach, every time. For our lives, it just didn’t feel right at all. I already got exploited on the internet without my consent. You think I’m gonna ask for that?"
Outside of the scandal, the show also comes after Frankie Taylor Paul was arrested on charges of aggravated assault, two counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child, child abuse with injury, and criminal mischief in 2023 following a drunken episode, according to the New York Post. As part of her plea deal, she pleaded guilty to aggravated assault while the other charges were tossed.
Now that you're all caught up on the drama, let us know what you think about The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives, now streaming on Hulu.
