How do you solve a problem like Taylor Frankie Paul?

What a week.

I’ve spent nearly a full week trying to figure out what to write about the most recent season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Mostly, this is because of the onslaught of new information that has been taking over headlines throughout the week. The story continues to deepen and continues to darken.

Taylor’s Bachelorette promo image

Earlier this week, it was announced that Taylor Frankie Paul, the leader of MomTok, was recently arrested for a domestic altercation with her baby daddy Dakota Mortenson. This is, of course, a separate incident from their 2023 altercation, which was included in the pilot episode of SLOMW and resulted in Taylor’s pleading guilty and conviction. Yesterday, a video from that first incident was leaked to TMZ and within two hours ABC announced that it would be cancelling her upcoming season of The Bachelorette, which was set to premiere this Sunday.

The video is truly horrible. As I said, the incident was included in the show’s first episode and Taylor has talked about her role as the aggressor before, but seeing the extent of it is jarring. More specifically: the presence of her then five year old daughter, who was hit by a metal stool that Taylor threw at Dakota and can be heard throughout the video wailing. It’s disturbing, and I believe ABC made the correct choice by pulling the upcoming season.

That being said, one has to wonder why ABC decided to choose Taylor as The Bachelorette at all. When the choice was announced, Bachelor fans across the internet were stunned: how could they choose someone with a history of domestic violence? Surely, if they chose a Bachelor with a DV conviction who was still on probation from that instance, the backlash would be swift and enormous. Choosing Taylor was obviously a “corporate synergy”, cross-pollination move: both ABC and Hulu (SLOMW’s streamer) are owned by Disney. In fact, season four of Secret Lives was mostly just a long-winded advertisement for The Bachelorette, albeit not a good one.

I would go one step further than asking why Taylor was chosen as The Bachelorette and ask why Hulu continued making SLOMW at all after its star was arrested for domestic violence in the first episode. Disney is famously one of the most litigious companies in the world, I struggle to believe that they weren’t heavily monitoring her DV trial. They absolutely knew what happened and likely saw that video, as it almost certainly was included in the court proceedings as evidence. Obviously, they saw an extremely volatile woman struggling with mental illness as a perfect specimen for reality tv. There is always a question of whether reality TV is ethical—these are real humans living their real lives, often heavily manipulated by producers in order to create compelling television, after all—and this video makes it clear that Disney and Hulu decided to disregard any ethical concerns over the health and safety of Taylor and her children in order to create a profitable, popular show.

Throughout SLOMW, Taylor frequently talks about the therapy she’s in and the healing journey she’s on, but in season 4 it was made clear that whatever she’s doing isn’t working for her. I don’t mean that in a judgmental way, I mean that objectively her actions were not those of a mentally healthy and stable person. She was erratic and frequently livid, she flew a stranger out from TikTok because she had a crush on him and invited him into her home, her home was frequently pictured as being messy and she spent a lot of time in bed. The way she continues to engage with her toxic cycle of explosive breakups and impulsive sex with Dakota is not the behavior of a healthy person. The reason I was struggling to write about this season before all this news came out was that something was clearly very wrong, and Taylor and Dakota’s relationship had gone from irritating and dysfunctional to toxic in a clearly unhealthy way.

And I think the show is actively making things worse for her. Not only do they have an aggressive and punishing filming schedule—there have been four seasons of SLOMW in the past two years, they basically never stop filming—but the drama between Taylor and Dakota is a major plot line of the show, drawing out a relationship that is in desperate need of a clean break. Not only does the production team continue to include Dakota in things, the husbands of the other women do as well. Jordan, Jessi’s clout-chasing demon soon-to-be-ex-husband, constantly invites Dakota to events Taylor is attending. Jordan is very calculating in his quest to ride his wife’s coattails to fame, and he obviously has realized that Dakota is his ticket to do that. If the show had stopped filming, it seems possible that Taylor and Dakota wouldn’t see each other and would be able to escape this toxic cycle they are trapped in.

I don’t bring up Taylor’s mental illness or the negative impact of the show to minimize or justify her abuse: that video is horrible and I am heartbroken for her children and even sad for Dakota, who I can’t stand. And while I do believe that the emotional abuse goes both ways in their relationship, her behavior is inexcusable.

I’m reading EJ Dickson’s One Bad Mother right now, about the ways mothers and motherhood is portrayed in the media, and it feels very relevant to this moment. In one chapter she talks about the way most domestic violence committed by mothers is, at least to some extent, usually related to mental illness. It is much easier for us to view violent women as simply being evil, rather than facing the facts of their struggles and lack of support. Mormon culture is quick to push women into motherhood and even quicker to sweep any ugly issues under the rug, including mental illness. Not only is Taylor not receiving the mental healthcare she needs, she is constantly being put under significant amounts of stress by Hulu and the show. It is a complex situation where multiple things can be true: her abuse is indefensible, Dakota and Hulu have a part in their toxic relationship, and she is clearly mentally ill and in need of serious help. While I have enjoyed watching Secret Lives, it feels kind of gross to be part of the audience as a woman spirals out of control in front of our very eyes. I hope that she, Dakota, and her children get the help and support they truly need, and I hope for their sake that we don’t see them for a long time after this, so they have a chance to heal in private.