If there were ever a community of people that commands endless intrigue, it’s Mormons. The religion preaches such interesting teachings of Christianity that interviews with Mormon students on TikTok regularly go viral (usually because they’ll happily choose to hypothetically kill a puppy over drinking a sip of alcohol). And just when you thought there wasn’t enough curiosity about the lives of Mormons, there was the Mormon mummy swinging scandal of 2022. Yes, seriously – and now, the scandal is being brought to the small screen curtesy of reality TV’s holy grail production company, Hulu.
If you aren’t up to date on the scandal, allow us to revisit. Over on TikTok, there were a group of mum influencers who regularly posted about their Mormon lifestyle – dubbed #MormonMomTok. Queen of the Mormon mums was Taylor Frankie Paul, who has over 4million followers on TikTok, and broke the internet (or at least, #MormonTok) when she revealed she and her husband, Tate Paul, were divorcing after she violated a swinging agreement they’d made with their friends (that’s code for cheating, right?).
‘We had an agreement, all of us, and I did step out of that agreement,’ she confessed on TikTok live in May 2022. ‘That’s where I messed up and I’m obviously losing everything that I have.
‘But no one was innocent, everyone has hooked up with everyone in the situation,’ she continued. ‘So yes, I’m getting shunned… but it wasn’t like I was going around hooking up with my friends husband. We were at a party, I got belligerent, and we went and messed around by ourselves rather than with the whole group… it was a one-time thing because we were so gone.’
If you’re confused where Mormonism comes into this, so are we. Swinging is not an accepted practice in the religion, in fact they are meant to abide by the so-called law of chastity which says, ‘God approves of sexual activity only between a man and a woman who are married… Outside of marriage between a man and a woman, it is wrong to touch the private, sacred parts of another person's body even if clothed.’
So, you can see where we have scandal! After the news broke, TikTok sleuthers were obsessed with the lives of these Mormon mums, and any friend associated with Taylor was assumed to be part of the swinging community – though a number denied being involved at all. Now though, eight of them are choosing to own the scandal.
In Hulu’s The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which comes out on 6 September, the aftermath of the drama exploding online has been captured by the cameras as producers follow eight women all presumed to be involved in the chaos. ‘The scandalous world of a group of Mormon mom influencers implodes when they get caught in the midst of a swinging sex scandal that makes international headlines,’ Hulu’s description reads. The show will feature Taylor Frankie Paul, Demi Engemann, Jennifer Affleck, Jessi Ngatikaura, Layla Taylor, Mayci Neeley, Mikayla Matthews, and Whitney Leavitt.
Viewers will be keen to see not just how Taylor was shunned, but the resulting drama that unfolded on TikTok when she debuted a new boyfriend, Dakota Mortensen, just three months after her divorce was announced. It got dark quickly, after Taylor was arrested on assault and domestic violence charges in February 2023. She pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, while the other four charges were dismissed with prejudice.
Taylor reached a plea deal in September last year, but that same month announced her pregnancy. Welcoming a son Ever in March, with Dakota, it’s Taylor’s third child – she has two, a six-year-old daughter named Indy and three-year-old son named Ocean, with her ex-husband.
Naturally, those who following the initial drama will be tuning in to get the real behind the scenes of what went on. Swinging, social media and Mormonism? You couldn’t make a better reality show as far as we’re concerned.