Taylor Frankie Paul is an American social media influencer, reality television personality, and one of the most polarising figures to emerge from the Mormon momfluencer world. She rose to national fame as the founder of the viral MomTok community on TikTok before becoming the breakout star of Hulu’s hit series The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. By 2026, she had landed the lead role on The Bachelorette Season 22 — only for the entire season to be scrapped days before its premiere following a flood of domestic violence revelations.
She is all about a complicated portrait of ambition, personal trauma, and very public consequence.
Biography
Taylor Frankie Paul was born on May 23, 1994, in Salt Lake City, Utah. She grew up in a devout Latter-day Saints (LDS) household shaped by an early and painful loss: her biological father, Brian, left the family when she was still an infant. She met him just once, around age four, at a restaurant, where his only greeting was “What’s up, kid?” That was essentially the whole encounter. Brian passed away before any real relationship could develop between them — a wound Taylor has openly connected to her lifelong struggles with trust and abandonment.
Her mother, Liann May, a Utah realtor, married Jeremy May when Taylor was around two years old, and Jeremy adopted her as his own. “He’s been the father throughout my life, so he’s my dad,” Taylor has said. She grew up with two younger half-siblings, sister Aspen May and brother Hunter May, in a household steeped in LDS faith and culture. She later described herself as a “wild child” even within that setting.
A Season 4 discovery added another layer to her origin story — through a genealogist on the show, she learned she has two half-siblings on her biological father’s side, ages 22 and 24, whom she had never met. She travelled to Colorado to learn about Brian’s life and found out he had suffered a serious car accident that derailed him, and that he had been violent toward her mother during their relationship.
Career
Taylor joined TikTok in January 2019 and began building an audience through dance trend videos, parenting content, and honest glimpses into her life as a young Mormon mother. Her following grew steadily through 2020, particularly after a dance video to Pop Smoke’s “Mood Swings” in August of that year caught serious attention. Around this time, she became the self-proclaimed founder of #MomTok — a loose collective of roughly 25 Mormon mothers in Utah who filmed content together and, collectively, pulled in millions of followers.
What really put her on the map, though, was a bombshell she dropped in May 2022. During a TikTok livestream, she announced she was divorcing her husband Tate Paul and revealed the couple had been involved in “soft swinging” — a term she later explained means physical intimacy between couples stopping short of full partner-swapping. She also admitted she had crossed that line herself by having a full affair with one of the other husbands in their circle. The internet imploded. The story went international, fractured the MomTok community, and set Taylor on a trajectory she couldn’t have predicted. “I lost my family, my husband,” she said later. “It’s so much deeper than that.”
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives
That scandal became the creative DNA behind Hulu’s The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, one of the more surprising reality TV hits in recent memory. The series follows the MomTok group as they navigate relationships, religion, social media careers, and the messy fallout from Taylor’s revelations — and it hit harder than anyone expected. Season 1 premiered on September 6, 2024, with eight episodes, reaching #7 on Nielsen streaming ratings and out-performing The Kardashians in debut viewership on Hulu.
The show was renewed for 20 additional episodes in October 2024 and earned a 2025 Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program. Season 2 premiered in May 2025, Season 3 in November 2025, and Season 4 dropped on March 12, 2026 — just one week before Taylor’s career took its most dramatic turn. Cast members were elevated to executive producer titles for Season 4, reflecting how central they had become to the franchise’s success. Season 5 was greenlit but production was frozen in March 2026.
Taylor was also named to the TIME100 Creators 2025 list, confirming her status as a genuine cultural force — not just a viral moment.
Bachelorette and Its Cancellation
On September 10, 2025, Taylor was announced as the lead of The Bachelorette Season 22 on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast, making history as the first lead never to have appeared on any prior Bachelor franchise season. Filming ran from late October to mid-December 2025 across multiple locations including Las Vegas, Miami, Steamboat Springs, and Saint Lucia.
The season was fully filmed, heavily promoted, and set to premiere on March 22, 2026. Taylor walked the Oscars red carpet on March 15, appeared on Good Morning America, and attended a New York City preview dinner on March 17. It looked, from the outside, like a clean ascent into the next chapter.
Then on March 19, 2026, TMZ published a video from a 2023 domestic incident involving Taylor and her ex-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen — footage that reportedly no one at ABC had previously seen. Disney pulled the entire season the same day, stating: “In light of the newly released video just surfaced today, we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of ‘The Bachelorette’ at this time.” The slot was filled with an American Idol rerun.
It was one of the most abrupt cancellations in franchise history.
Personal Life
Marriage, Divorce, and Children
Taylor married her high school sweetheart, Tate Paul, in an LDS temple in November 2016. The two had two children together: daughter Indy May Paul (born August 31, 2017) and son Ocean Paul (born June 18, 2020). They divorced after Taylor’s 2022 soft-swinging revelations. By all accounts, the co-parenting relationship has remained functional. Tate has since remarried and keeps a low profile. Taylor retains joint custody of both Indy and Ocean. She also had another son, Ever True Mortensen, with Dakota Mortensen.
Dakota Mortensen Relationship
Taylor began dating Dakota Mortensen in July 2022, just months after her divorce announcement. Dakota, now 33, is a real estate agent and construction company owner from Caldwell, Idaho, and a former contestant on The Island with Bear Grylls (2015). He has spoken openly about recovering from heroin addiction, which began after a high school sports injury.
The relationship has been defined, almost entirely, by volatility. In November 2022, Taylor announced a pregnancy that turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy — a deeply painful loss she documented on TikTok, describing it as “a slow and painful process.” They briefly split in December 2022 before reconciling in January 2023. The 2023 domestic violence arrest followed weeks later.
Despite everything, they got back together again. Taylor announced a new pregnancy in September 2023, and their son Ever True Mortensen was born on March 19, 2024. That date, coincidentally, is the same day in 2026 that ABC canceled The Bachelorette — and the same day Dakota filed for a protective order and was granted temporary custody of Ever, citing safety concerns stemming from a February 2026 altercation.
2023 Arrest and Legal Fallout
On the night of February 17, 2023, Taylor and Dakota were involved in a drunken argument at their Herriman, Utah, residence. Police were called after a neighbor complained about the noise. Officers arrived to find Taylor still lunge at Dakota; she was arrested and booked into Salt Lake County Jail at 1:56 a.m.
The charges were significant: one count of third-degree felony aggravated assault, two felony counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child, one misdemeanor child abuse charge, and one misdemeanor criminal mischief count. Body-cam footage from the arrest was used in the very first episode of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which tells you something about how Taylor has approached her own story.
On August 25, 2023, she entered a plea in abeyance, pleading guilty to one count of felony aggravated assault. The remaining four charges were dismissed. Her sentence included 36 months of supervised probation ending August 24, 2026, along with domestic violence and substance abuse evaluations, and a prohibition on alcohol and drug use. If she completes the probation period without incident, the felony reduces to a Class A misdemeanour. That review date in August 2026 is now a significant milestone, given the fresh allegations from February 2026.
The Utah Division of Children and Family Services also has an open investigation, and the Draper City Police are investigating the more recent February 2026 incidents, with allegations reportedly going in both directions.
Faith and Personal Struggles
Taylor describes herself as spiritual rather than strictly religious. “I’m Mormon, but I’m more spiritual than I am religious,” she told Us Weekly in March 2026. “How are you treating people? What are your intentions? That’s all that matters.” Her Instagram bio still reads “Jesus is king,” but she’s been candid about living in the grey areas her faith doesn’t officially accommodate.
She attended a two-week mental health retreat during Season 4 filming and has been in therapy since her divorce. A mental health assessment from 2023 legal proceedings described her as an intermediate problem drinker with borderline anxiety and mild depression — details she has acknowledged rather than buried.
Net Worth
Taylor Frankie Paul’s estimated net worth sits somewhere between $400,000 and $3 million, depending on the source. Celebrity Net Worth pegs it at roughly $400,000, while entertainment outlets like StyleCaster and Brit+Co place estimates in the $3–5 million range.
Her income has come from multiple directions: TikTok content creation, Instagram sponsorships, her Hulu reality show salary, brand deals with companies including Shein and Ulta, and what would have been a Bachelorette lead contract historically worth between $110,000 and $250,000.
The events of March 2026, however, have taken a serious bite out of those figures. Cinnabon terminated its collaboration with both The Bachelorette and SLOMW. Meta dropped a content deal. The Bachelorette season may never air, meaning the associated income disappears with it. SLOMW Season 5 production remains frozen. With her probation ending in August 2026 and two active investigations still open, her financial picture going forward is genuinely uncertain.
