What Happened to Taylor Frankie Paul? Back on Reality TV in 2026

For a stretch of 2024 and 2025, Taylor Frankie Paul was one of the most watchable people on television. She built MomTok out of nothing, turned a scandal that would have ended most influencers into a Hulu franchise, and by early 2026 had landed the biggest reality-TV job in America. Then, three days before her season of “The Bachelorette” was supposed to premiere, ABC pulled it off the schedule. So what actually happened — and where does she stand now? Here’s the full picture as of July 2026.

01Profile

Full name

Taylor Frankie Paul

Born

May 23, 1994 (32 years old)

Birthplace

Pueblo, Colorado, USA

Raised

Utah, from age 16

Occupation

Reality television personality, social media creator

Best known for

"The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" (2024– ), founder of MomTok

Family

Three children; divorced from Tate Paul (married 2016, divorced 2022)

Recognition

TIME's Top 100 Creators list, June 2025

Two details there explain most of her career. She was a Utah Mormon mom with a TikTok account — and she was, by every account of people who worked with her, completely unwilling to give the sanitized version of anything.

02The Rise: From MomTok to Must See TV

She invented the thing she later starred in

In 2020, Paul started pulling other young Mormon mothers in Utah into a loose collective of TikTok creators. They did the dance trends, the get-ready-with-me videos, the motherhood content — but with an undercurrent that made it distinct: these were women inside a conservative religious culture talking, sometimes obliquely and sometimes not, about what their actual lives looked like. The group became known as MomTok, and it grew fast.

Paul didn’t sign onto a format someone else built. She built the format, and Hollywood came looking for it.

The 2022 video that changed everything

In 2022, Paul posted about the end of her marriage to Tate Paul and, in doing so, publicly described the “soft swinging” arrangement she and her husband had been part of within their social circle. The revelation detonated. National outlets picked it up, MomTok became a story about Mormon culture rather than a niche TikTok scene, and Paul went from regionally known creator to a name people outside Utah recognized.

It was the kind of exposure that usually burns an influencer down to the studs. Instead it became a television pitch.

Breakout star of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives”

Hulu’s “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” premiered in 2024, following the MomTok women, and Paul was immediately its center of gravity. Critics singled her out as the breakout — the cast member willing to say the unflattering thing on camera, including about herself. In June 2025, TIME named her to its Top 100 Creators list.

The show worked. It got renewed, and renewed again. And by the start of 2026, ABC had made her an offer that took her out of the streaming-reality world entirely.

03The Bachelorette That Never Aired

ABC cast Paul as the lead of “The Bachelorette” season 22. The season was filmed, promoted, and scheduled to premiere on March 22, 2026. It never did.

• Feb 2023Paul is arrested in Herriman, Utah, following an altercation with then-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen.
• Aug 2023She pleads guilty to aggravated assault, a third-degree felony; remaining charges are dismissed. She is sentenced to three years' probation.
• 2024–2025"The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" makes her a national figure; TIME lists her among its Top 100 Creators.
• Mar 17, 2026TMZ publishes her 2023 booking photo as the earlier case resurfaces in the press.
• Mar 19, 2026TMZ publishes video of the 2023 incident. Disney announces the same day that it will not move forward with the season.
• Mar 2026Production on "Mormon Wives" season 5 pauses amid police investigations in Draper and West Jordan.
• Apr 14, 2026The Salt Lake County District Attorney declines to file charges in the new investigations.
• Jul 2026Paul returns to "Mormon Wives" season 5 in a limited capacity.

The distinction that got lost in a lot of the coverage is worth stating plainly. The video TMZ released was not new footage of a new crime — it was documentation of the February 2023 incident that Paul had already pleaded guilty to and served probation for. What was new was that the public could suddenly see it. Disney’s statement cited “the newly released video just surfaced today” and said its focus was “on supporting the family.”

The season remains shelved. ABC has confirmed “The Bachelor” and “Bachelor in Paradise” for 2027; as of this writing there is no confirmed air date for season 22, and reports that the network was weighing a mid-July release have not resulted in a premiere.

04The Legal Picture

This is the part that requires care, because two separate things get conflated constantly.

The 2023 case is closed. Paul was charged following the February 2023 incident, pleaded guilty in August 2023 to aggravated assault, and had her other charges dismissed. She was sentenced to three years’ probation, with conditions including drug testing and check-ins running through August 2026. That matter was adjudicated nearly three years before it became a national story.

The 2026 investigations produced no charges. In March 2026, the Draper and West Jordan police departments investigated separate allegations involving Paul and Mortensen. On April 14, 2026, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill announced his office would not file charges. Per his statement, some alleged incidents fell outside the statute of limitations for misdemeanors, and for those within it, the conduct did “not rise to the level of criminal offenses” and lacked sufficient evidence to meet the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard. Reporting indicates no charges were filed against Mortensen in the Utah case either.

Paul responded publicly to the DA’s decision on Instagram.

Here come the ugly parts of what healing actually looks like. — Taylor Frankie Paul, Instagram post, April 2026, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter

In the same post she called the ordeal “the cost to my freedom” and wrote that she “wouldn’t wish this upon my worst enemy.” A spokesperson said she was “grateful for ABC’s support as she prioritizes her family’s safety and security.”

Both Paul and Mortensen have made allegations against the other, and both have pursued protective orders. Neither has been convicted of anything arising from the 2026 investigations. Nothing here should be read as a finding against either of them.

05What She Is Doing Now

Back on “Mormon Wives” — barely

In April 2026, Hulu announced the show would resume production, and in July, TMZ and Variety reported that Paul had returned to film season 5. The catch is significant: reporting indicates she filmed opening credits and intros over roughly two days, with no final confessional. That’s a nominal presence, not a starring role. For the person who created MomTok and carried the show for four seasons, it is a striking reduction.

An ongoing custody dispute

Paul is in continuing custody proceedings with Mortensen and with her ex-husband Tate Paul over their three children. Court filings from both sides have been reported on heavily by TMZ through June and July 2026, including disputes over drop-offs and protective-order terms. In July 2026, she also filed a civil stalking injunction in Salt Lake County against an associate of Mortensen’s, according to reporting.

These are active proceedings. Out of respect for the children involved — who are private individuals — the details of the filings aren’t recounted here.

Off social media, then back on it

In late April 2026, Paul deactivated her Instagram and TikTok accounts, with a source telling PEOPLE she was stepping back for her mental health. The break lasted about a week and a half. By early May she was posting again, including a Mental Health Awareness Month post on May 5. Her Instagram account remains active as of July 2026; her posting is far less frequent than at her MomTok peak.

In April 2026, as reported by Variety and E! News, Paul announced she was stepping away from the LDS Church — a notable development for someone whose entire public identity was built on being a Mormon mom. In a detailed Instagram post on Easter Sunday she wrote that she had been “born and raised Mormon (lds)” and that “it’s time to detach myself from it,” while affirming her continued belief in Christ and God. She framed it as detaching from the institution rather than a formal resignation.

06Summary

Taylor Frankie Paul’s 2026 is a genuinely unusual media story: a woman who was cleared by prosecutors in the new investigations, but who lost the biggest job of her career over documentation of an old case she had already answered for in court.

Where this goes next is genuinely open. The unaired Bachelorette season still exists on a hard drive somewhere, her role on the show that made her has been reduced to a credit sequence, and the legal calendar is still running. Paul built a career out of narrating her own life more honestly than was comfortable for anyone. The question for 2027 is whether there’s still a platform willing to let her do it.