On Easter Sunday, Taylor Frankie Paul said on Instagram that she plans to “detach” herself from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The announcement made headlines in multiple national outlets — “Taylor Frankie Paul says she’s leaving the Mormon church amid ‘hell on earth’ domestic violence scandal” (Fox News), “Taylor Frankie Paul says she will ‘detach’ from LDS Church” (USA Today), “Taylor Frankie Paul is distancing herself from Mormon church” (Los Angeles Times), among others.
This may not have drawn much of a reaction from practicing Latter-day Saints. (Most congregations don’t include a celebrity who goes on reality television and flaunts well-known church standards.)
But for fans of the show “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” it was probably big news. In the words of the Los Angeles Times, Paul “built her brand on” this religion.
“The series offered a look at Mormon moms in Utah that subverted viewers’ expectations,” reads the Times article. “Paul drank alcohol and scandalized her online following when she admitted that her social circle participated in ‘soft swinging’ in which they swapped partners for hookups but ‘didn’t go all the way.’ The series followed her through the aftermath of a divorce and an on-again, off-again relationship with Dakota Mortensen, all of which is frowned upon by the Mormon church.”
While The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has emphasized using the full name of the church, Disney — which owns ABC and Hulu — has been more than willing to use the term “Mormon” as a marketing tool.
“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” has been impossible to miss over the past few years. Disney put the show on billboards and broadcast television. Whitney Leavitt and Jen Affleck competed on “Dancing With the Stars,” and Paul was cast as “The Bachelorette” for Season 22.
All that changed when a leaked video of an alleged domestic violence incident in 2023 compelled Disney to pull the plug on the season.
A headline from the satirical publication The Onion read: “ABC Cancels Mormonism.”
Some Latter-day Saint women, including Sarah Jane Weaver and Camille Smith in this publication, have been vocal in saying that the show does not represent them or their religion. Such sentiments seem less a protest against the existence of the show or a judgy scold of the cast members’ degrees of orthodoxy, and more fatigue over seeing a faith co-opted in pop culture.
Just how many Americans equate the lives of Latter-day Saints with the “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” is not easy to quantify. But at least two non-Latter-day Saint podcasters assert that the series has done Latter-day Saints a disservice.
Andy Levine, who hosts a podcast called “Dear Shandy” with his wife, opera singer and former “Bachelor” contestant Sharleen Joynt, suggests Latter-day Saints have a right to be annoyed.
“It’s an indignity to the Mormon people that this is the representation they get on television,” Levine said in an episode discussing the cancellation of Paul’s season.
The podcast hosts frequently do recaps of shows like “The Bachelor” and “Love is Blind,” but made it clear they are not fans of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”
“If I were a true Mormon, I would be so upset by this,” Joynt said.
Levine acknowledged that pop culture “can easily make fun of” Latter-day Saints and their faith, but said he has “yet to meet a group of people that is nicer and kinder than your run-of-the-mill Mormons. ...
“Maybe there are a lot of MomTok-y Mormons out there. But I’ve met a lot of good people who are Mormons and I’ve never met a single one that I didn’t think was an excellent human being. And I don’t care. Whatever they want to believe in, that’s fine. But I will say that this is an incredible disservice to them.”
We don’t know if ABC’s “Mormon moment” is over, or just on hiatus. Filming of Season 5 was paused due to Paul’s legal trouble, but just last week, the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office declined to file charges against Paul.
But for those who feel misrepresented, Levine gets it.
“It’s almost like a lawsuit, like a class-action lawsuit level. ... And I think that the last bit of injury that this causes this franchise and this whole thing, with ‘The Bachelorette’ being another casualty, is that the people of Mormonism are now made a joke of, beyond the joke that they were already being made of.”