Back in 2022, you couldn’t scroll on TikTok without seeing a choreographed dance from a group of Mormon Utah moms, headed up by self-acclaimed MomTok founder Taylor Frankie Paul. MomTok immediately made a splash on social media as viewers across the country developed what Mayci Neeley calls a “fascination” with the group’s lifestyle.
“We’re these Mormon moms, but we don’t look like stereotypical Mormons — we’re wearing crop tops, we’re in a huge group together,” Neeley told TheWrap, admitting that a layer of intrigue was added by the “spicy captions” crafted by Paul. “She’s very good at the satire of really drawing people in.”
Growing the pack to include Jessi Ngatikaura, Jennifer Affleck, Mikayla Matthews, Layla Taylor and Demi Angemann, MomTok pushed the bounds of what Mormon moms could look like — until a mention of a swinging scandal made headlines.
“It just blew it up even more,” Neeley said of the scandal’s aftermath. “[People] were like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on?’ They thought that all of MomTok was swinging together.”
Several months after the scandal rocked the group’s friendships, Paul and the Utah-based moms were approached with the idea of telling their story in a reality series, which became Hulu’s “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” While Paul weighed whether amplifying the group would make things even worse, she joked, “How much worse could you get in my situation?”
“People got a little piece of the story that I had to tell, and I was judged just off that piece, and then I was also known for that piece of story that I told,” Paul reflected. “I feel like this was the perfect opportunity to give … background of what happened, why it happened and my life now.”
Neeley echoed Paul’s comments, saying social media users are “seeing maybe 10% of our real life.”
At the time “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” kicks off, there’s been an undeniable rift in the group, with several of the women pointing their finger at Paul, who first broke the news about the swinging on social media, for turning their lives upside-down.
“I did have an issue with that … They were kind of profiting off of that, as well, and using it as jokes,” Paul said. “It took a second for everything to settle in, and then hear the story on both sides and be like, ‘OK, maybe Taylor isn’t as horrible as we thought she was.’”
“Some people may still think that, and others may have changed their mind, but in the midst of it, it was hard being alone for the time that I was,” she added.
Still, Paul said she doesn’t regret telling her story in that initial TikTok, though she does “regret how it all came about and how it got other people’s lives involved.” She also admitted she regrets making what she calls “cringey TikToks” in the immediate aftermath of the scandal. “It wasn’t funny, but I was so numb and so fed up that with everyone. If I were to go back, that is something I definitely would do differently or not do it all.”
Since the scandal, Paul divorced her husband and entered into a new relationship with Dakota Mortensen, which she admits was a “little rough in the beginning” with Paul in the public eye.
“My boyfriend now was hesitant back then,” she said, adding that despite having strong feelings for her, he had to take a step back to assess what life with her would look like.
The first episode of the docuseries depicts the moment and aftermath of Paul’s arrest on suspicion of domestic violence directed at Mortensen, which she looks back on as “the worst night of [her] life.”
“[It’s] something I’m not proud of,” she said. “I really go into depth on the show of leading up to that and what really went down, and it’s really an emotional topic, and I get really vulnerable.”
Despite having complex feelings regarding the church’s rules, Paul hasn’t strayed away from going to church, especially as scrutiny regarding her life has amped up. “There’s not one way to be Mormon,” she said. “I was still going to church, and now, even more so, with all of this press coming out about our show and judgment of the other members. I still am going to go to church with a smile on my face.”
While Paul and Neeley hope to expand perceptions of the Mormon community for viewers outside of the church, they also hope telling their story can help shift stereotypes for women inside of it, too.
“I want women, especially in the church, to feel like they are equal and that they’re enough, and that they don’t have to stay at home and be a mom … They have choices,” Neeley said.
“I hope girls that maybe aren’t as by-the-book and make mistakes and [have] done wrong [that] don’t think that they can’t be a part of the LDS religion, or they can’t go to church because they’re feeling so guilty about things they’ve done,” Paul added. “I hope that they know that they can make mistakes and still go and be a part of it. I don’t go for the people, you know, I’m going there for God and Jesus, and that’s always been my reasoning.”
“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” is now streaming on Hulu.
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