Five years ago, Mormonism was something you were probably aware of without really knowing much about. Now it feels as though you can’t move in the pop culture sphere without hearing about it, thanks in part to The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives, Hulu’s most-watched unscripted premiere of 2024.
Streaming on Disney+, it has taken Mormon mania to a whole new level. The wives – Taylor Paul, Whitney Leavitt, Layla Taylor, Jessi Ngatikaura, Jen Affleck (not that one, but she is married to a distant cousin of Ben Affleck), Mikayla Matthews, Mayci Neeley and Demi Engemann – rose to fame as MomTok, a crew of dancing, TikTok friendly Mormon mothers with identical long, wavy hair and suggestive moves. They were propelled to peak notoriety two years ago when their leader, Paul, let slip in one of her videos that members of the wider group had been indulging in checks notes swinging, confessing she had ‘gone all the way’ with someone else’s husband.
You might think you couldn’t get much more un-Mormon than wife-swapping, but the women give it a good go. They admit they get Botox so they can make use of the laughing gas machine, recount an eye-opening sex story involving Fruity Pebbles cereal, and two let slip that they’ve taken ketamine.
The antics of Paul and co has made Salt Lake City a thriving hub of viral reality moments. There’s also Salt Lake’s hugely successful Real Housewives franchise, which started in 2020 and hit the big time thanks in no small part to cast member Heather Gay, whose memoir, Bad Mormon, details her break-up with the church. A more conventional depiction of Mormonism has also gone viral this year thanks to TikTok Trad Wives Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman, aka Ballerina Farm.
Smith, a 22-year-old Mormon model who is married to another Mormon model, Lucky Blue Smith, already has three children (Rumble Honey, three, Slim Easy, two, and baby Whimsy Lou). With 9.7m followers, she mostly shares content from her kitchen, where she makes everything from scratch
(even bubblegum). The couple are now a hot commodity, appearing at recent fashion weeks and shooting content for Marc Jacobs and Ralph Lauren.
The Trad Wife movement has faced criticism for glamourising 1950s gender roles, packaging them in a way that encourages women to embrace fundamentalist values. Neeleman, who has 7.5m TikTok followers, was at the centre of controversy, after a recent profile in The Times suggested she was duped into marriage and having eight children in quick succession – abandoning her dreams to be a dancer to
please her fundamentalist husband.
Neeleman responded that claims she was oppressed couldn’t be ‘further from the truth’. So, why are we seeing such a proliferation of high-profile Mormon women? New York magazine writer EJ Dickson noted on X, ‘Historically, [Mormon] women have been strongly discouraged from working outside the home. Influencing has been a way for them to generate income and claim power while still serving a domestic role.’
Indeed, it’s one of the main themes of The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives. As Mayci Neeley says, ‘We’re changing the cultural norms in the church. We’re showing women they can do anything they put their minds to.'