Taylor Frankie Paul, the star of Hulu’s “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” and #MomTok fame, is headed to Bachelor Nation.
Paul, 31, joined Alex Cooper on her “Call Her Daddy” podcast Wednesday to announce the news, which was accompanied by a release from ABC, the network that airs “The Bachelorette.” She also confirmed to Cooper that she will return to “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” for season three, which premieres in November on Hulu.
On “Call Her Daddy,” Cooper noted that Paul is the first woman to be named the Bachelorette who is not already a part of the franchise.
“It’s not real, and it’s not going to be until, I think, the limo is pulling up,” Paul told Cooper, adding that the news “has not hit me” yet.
“In my head, I’m like, ‘How is this happening?'” she said.
Season 22 of “The Bachelorette” will air next year.
Paul rose to fame in recent years with the inception of #MomTok on TikTok while she was married to her first husband, Tate Paul. In May 2022, she went viral after she revealed in a TikTok livestream that she and her husband were “soft-swinging” in the Mormon community, which led to their divorce. They share two children.
Shortly afterward, she began dating Dakota Mortensen, with whom she has another child. Paul was arrested after a drunken argument with Mortensen in February 2023 and charged with aggravated assault. She avoided jail time by entering a plea deal.
Season two of the Hulu show, which focuses on Paul and the other mothers of Utah’s #MomTok, largely hinged on Paul and Mortensen’s on-and-off-again relationship.
The status of their relationship was unclear when the season ended with a dramatic reunion special on Hulu this year, but Paul told Cooper that she didn’t tell Mortensen she was going to be the new Bachelorette.
On “Call Her Daddy,” Paul said she didn’t believe that she would be picked to be the Bachelorette, the lead role of one of the most popular reality TV franchises, until she got the invitation that said, “Will you be our Bachelorette?”
Despite her excitement, Paul revealed to Cooper, she did have some hesitations before she accepted the role, many of which were tied to the fact that she’s a single mom of three with two “baby daddies.”
“My home base is here. Can I travel that long? Can I be gone that long?” Paul said she asked herself. “Is this possible for me to do as a single mom? Can I make it work, realistically, no matter how much I want this?”
Paul told Cooper that her family had a similar reaction to the news, and she said it “took a minute” for them to realize this was actually happening. Once they saw all of the roses, it hit them that this was real, she said.
“This is something so new for me because, obviously, I got married young, divorced, and then the first guy I met was the next relationship, so I have not done the whole meeting new people … dating at the same time,” she said. “That will be new to me.”
Paul expects the experience to be an adjustment because she’s “not a reality TV girl,” but she said she has watched the show in the past and is aware of some of the lore from the franchise.
“I don’t have notes of how this works,” she said, adding that she and her friends have done role-play scenarios of what she might end up in on the show. Still, she admitted, the format is foreign to her.
“You’re not going to ruin it,” Cooper said of the upcoming season. “You’re going to make it your own.”
Paul is one of a few “Mormon Wives” to venture away from Salt Lake City and into a new realm of reality television. Co-stars Jen Affleck — who may or may not be related to Ben Affleck — and Whitney Leavitt will be on season 34 of “Dancing with the Stars.”
Paul told Cooper that her “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” co-stars have all reacted positively to her news about being the Bachelorette, but she said she can’t be sure there aren’t side group chats discussing the news in a negative light.
One of the main storylines in season two of “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” centered on Taylor’s being invited to attend the 2024 Country Music Awards show, which was not celebrated online by her fellow castmates.