Well, MomTok survived this.
Two stars of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives cheers to that—over mocktails, of course—when we meet for happy hour days before Season 2 of their zeitgeist-seizing, scandalizing, and mega-hit reality series’ premieres on Hulu. (The first 10 episodes are now available to stream.)
Jessi Ngatikaura opts for a virgin piña colada, excited after hearing the bartender blending one when she walked in. Layla Taylor goes with the tried-and-true Shirley Temple, while I roll the dice on a phony negroni.
If it wasn’t such a cute, on-theme idea to get alcohol-free drinks with the Mormon Wives, as devout members of the Church of Latter Day Saints famously are prohibited from drinking, we could have thrown back at a real cocktail hour. Both Jessi and Layla identify among the “sinners” of the cast, whose tension with the “saints” over being lax about traditional Mormon prohibitions is one of the most eye-opening aspects of their series.
That we’re at the Hekate Café and Elixir Lounge in the East Village of Manhattan, where alcohol-free drinks are served alongside tarot readings (“come for an elixir, stay for a spell!”), however, adds a suitable “sinners” vibe to our meet-up.
Jessi and Layla are as stunning in person as they are on TV, with the kind of cascading hair and warm makeup that would make the star of a CW drama weep with envy. Both are wearing black, fitting in among the New York City crowd during a whirlwind press push.
They’re, in a sense, reeling over the non-stop attention—good and bad—their series has gotten as the gear up for another round of discourse with the launch of Season 2. And they’re ready to dish: about the scandals, about the backlash, and how the Mormon community has treated them since the show began.
“We were like, oh, everyone’s gonna hate us, at least in our community,” Jessi says, before grinning: “But yeah, they got over it.”
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives captivated with its titillating title alone. And then people learned about the plot description.
A group of women living in Utah became known collectively as “MomTok” on social media. They produced viral videos about motherhood and their community—most members were Mormons or ex-Mormons still connected to the church—that became so popular they each respectively became internet moguls, garnering massive sponsorship deals to promote products on their accounts.
But MomTok broke out of their corner of social media and into the mainstream like a swinging wrecking ball when a salacious scandal was exposed: several members of MomTok and their husbands were allegedly a part of a swingers’ circle. Swinging? Among Mormons?! Tabloids had a field day…and a reality TV show was born.
What The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives has become, Jessi and Layla told me, was not what they originally were sold.
“At the beginning we didn’t know the show was gonna be called Mormon Wives, and so we were just like, oh, we’re just gonna talk about our lives,” Jessi says. “We didn’t know it was going to be related to the church at all. We heard the name and were like, oh…”
“We thought it was going to be called MomTok or something,” Layla adds. Jessi admits that it was nerve-wracking when the cast learned that Mormonism was going to be a part of the show’s big sell: “We thought people might judge it right away. But now I’m like, OK, the name got attention.” They both start laughing.
The first season of Mormon Wives deals with the group’s loyalties as details are revealed—vague, often unsubstantiated—about the swinger scandal. Where the women rank against each other in MomTok leads to in-fighting, which spurns the kind of gossiping, cursing, and blow-ups one might expect from the reality TV genre, if not necessarily from Mormons.
What is “appropriate” is also an incessant source of contention, as some of the women own their sexuality, love of partying, and feminism, while others are still traditional followers of the church. The husbands and boyfriends were sources of drama, too, with an unexpected pregnancy and gay cheating rumors lighting up the season.
As every new layer of drama presented itself, the question was asked, “Will MomTok survive this?” Proof of the series’ sensation status: The question became a meme.
Production on Season 2 began almost immediately after Season 1 finished airing, meaning cameras were up again just as the cast was dealing with the monsoon of attention and scrutiny that came with being a part of the show. Yet there was no hesitation to return for more.
“I think we were always nervous, but we had such a positive reception to the show,” Jessi says. “Because when the trailer and the name dropped, everyone was p—ed, and that was really scary. And then the show came out and they loved it. So I think we were just kind of riding that high.”
And when you say everyone was p—ed, I ask, you mean… “Mormons were p—ed. Yes,” Jessi says.
We’re getting closer #momtok #thesecretlivesofmormonwives
As they heard it, the pair say that the community thought the cast was going to use the show to trash the church or insinuate that all Mormons are swingers. But that was never the intention; it was to show the full spectrum of women in the community. “They all watched it and then they shut their mouths,” Layla says, smiling devilishly.
Still, there’s no denying that a gargantuan factor in the show’s success is outsiders’ rabid curiosity and fascination with Mormons, almost as if they were turning on Hulu to watch the series like it’s a zoo exhibit.
“There are false narratives that are spread that we’re sister wives, and the garments is a very confusing thing for people,” Layla says. “I get questions like, where are your garments? And I’m like, okay, well you need to be sealed to have garments. And I’ve never been sealed.”
“There’s such a stigma in the media and Mormons have always had a reputation of being weird, and we’re just showing that we’re normal people and our religion has different aspects, just like every religion,” Jessi says.
But, she admits, calling the show Secret Lives of Mormon Wives only invited more of that stereotypical speculation. “That name definitely caused controversy.”
Jessi represents the ex-Mormons on the show. (When she and her husband brought a flask to a party, you would have thought it was crystal meth by the group’s reaction.) Layla converted when she was 16, but slipped away from the church when she got pregnant.
The “sinners” and “saints” labels began as a joke on the show, but evolved into a real dynamic.
The sinners were raised Mormon; some still are attached to the church and some aren’t. They drink, they curse, and they don’t wear garments. They do things that are not “allowed,” but they’re still active parts of the community and the culture. The saints are devout, follow the rules, and are “good Mormons.” And they judge.
Mormonism is about striving for perfectionism. If you’re not perfect you’re a sinner.
Imagine then, the judgement when it comes out that you’re a swinger.
It was the atom bomb that blew up MomTok. Taylor Frankie-Paul, one of the Mormon Wives cast members, publicly revealed that she and her then-husband attended swinging parties of “ethical non-monogamy.” Some MomTok members and their partners were implicated, and issued harsh denials.
Layla remembers that at one point the MomTok group chat had 20 women, and they all started leaving the chat to distance themselves from the scandal.
“My ex-husband told me that someone asked him at work if we were part of the swinging,” she says. “So it was definitely interesting, especially since I was eight months pregnant. I was like, I don’t even want to have sex with my own husband half the time.”
There was a little fear that, by doing the show, there would be an assumption that “we were all Mormon swingers,” Jessi says. But she and most of the cast has learned to embrace the tawdriness of the title and the insinuations—not that it’s always easy.
Who’s watching?! 😜 @secretlivesonhulu
Take the two seasons of the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives opening credits. For Season 1, the cast dramatically struts in front of the iconic Mormon temple in Salt Lake City while Sam Smith’s “Unholy” plays. “We hated that, because we were like, oh, Mormons are gonna give us crap,” Jessi says. “And they did.”
This year, the cast emerges from a lake, water dripping from their hair as their soaked white gowns cling to their bodies. “We made jokes, like, oh, sexy baptism,” she says. “At this point, with the title and the show that we’re on, we make fun of ourselves.”
Plus, there is, for lack of a better word, a “mission” that Jessi, Layla, and many of the women are on that motivates their involvement in the show: to show the future of the Mormon community, one that isn’t so attached to the patriarchy.
These women are raking in astronomical figures with their MomTok sponsorship deals. They are typically the breadwinners in their relationships. They are working moms.
“The world of Mormonism is shifting that way, but for a long time, historically, your number one goal was to have kids, be a stay at home mom, and that’s it,” Jessi says. “And if you wanted to work, you were seen as selfish. So I think we’re breaking that stigma, especially in our culture.”
The way they see it, the Mormon Wives are changing conversations about gender roles now, so that their kids don’t have to do it. “And don’t suffer the same generational trauma we’re not handing down to our babies,” Layla says.
In the process they are demystifying their community for the broader world. Sure, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives as a title may be baiting. But the content, they hope, is illuminating.
To that end, as we finish up our mocktails, I confess what was the most eye-opening part of their culture to me: the obsession with soda. These women walk around as if a soda can is surgically attached to an appendage. And these chains that are just devoted to sodas? Wild!
“It’s our morning bar! A soda bar, on every corner, with the churches,” Jessi says. “It’s in our culture. It’s in our blood.”
I confess that I truly had never heard of a soda bar.
“I know! I’m like what do you mean you don’t have a Swig Soda drive thru?” Layla says. Since the show’s popularity spiked, similar shops have been opening outside of Utah, I tell her. She smiles: “You’re welcome, Swig.”
The post The Truth Behind the ‘Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ appeared first on The Daily Beast.
