It’s official: Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of “The Bachelorette” has been cancelled.
Paul, a TV personality known for her starring role in Hulu’s “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” was announced as the bachelorette for Season 22 on Sept. 10, 2025. Her season was filmed in its entirety from late October to mid-December and set to premiere on March 22.
On March 19, just three days before the first episode was set to air, ABC cancelled the upcoming season of “The Bachelorette,” after TMZ posted a video of Paul physically assaulting her baby daddy, Dakota Mortensen, with her children in the house in 2023.
Mortensen has been granted temporary custody of their son Ever (2) as well as a temporary restraining order against Paul after a hearing on March 19, according to a People exclusive.
Fans of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” like myself, were pretty shocked to find out that of all of the women on the show, it was Paul who the network decided would be the ideal candidate for Bachelor Nation.
Paul rose from TikTok fame, as the leader of a group of Mormon moms from Utah called #MomTok, to reality TV fame when she was implicated in a swinging scandal amongst other couples in the group. Hulu released “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” following the members of #MomTok in the aftermath of the scandal.
Paul has always had a messy love life. That’s why her journey as the bachelorette felt inappropriately timed.
In season 4 of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” which wrapped filming shortly before Paul went off to film “The Bachelorette,” she was still running back to Mortensen, with whom she hasn’t been able to cut ties with since their breakup shortly after their son’s birth.
The two can’t seem to let each other go. Time and time again they fall back into each other’s arms, fight, cry, swear they hate each other and do it all over again.
The choice to make Paul the star of Season 22 of “The Bachelorette” can be better described as an exploitation of her fame than a genuine opportunity to find love. Especially since it is obvious that her she is not in the right mental headspace for a long-term relationship.
Jessi Draper, a close friend of Paul and a member of #MomTok, tells Paul that she “should have said no to ‘The Bachelorette’. You’re not well,” Draper told Paul while filming season 4 of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”
On the show, Paul chronicles her journey in therapy, frequent setbacks back into her toxic relationship and issues she is trying to address regarding her past. It is clear that these are not past struggles but ever-present in her life.
Due to the continuing dynamic of her toxic relationship with Mortensen, Paul’s going on “The Bachelorette” has been controversial from the start. To say that her season ending badly was unexpected is a flat-out lie.
Believe it or not, Paul did end the season by choosing a man from the lineup. Yet only a month after “The Bachelorette” wrapped, she ended the relationship and reportedly called Mortensen 152 times in the span of two hours, says TMZ.
Needless to say, Paul’s journey as the bachelorette was just as short-lived and chaotic as viewers expected it to be. While it looks like we’re out a season of good drama from “The Bachelorette,” I have a feeling that Paul’s personal drama is still very much on the table.