“The Bachelorette,” a mainstay of ABC’s dating show ecosystem, has been slipping in ratings and relevance since its peak in the late 2010s. So the announcement last fall that Taylor Frankie Paul, of Hulu’s juggernaut reality show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” would have a run this season as “The Bachelorette” came as a jolt. (The show’s tagline this season: “If you don’t fit the mold, break it.”)
Paul was more famous than the show’s previous leading ladies as the drama-stirring leader of a group of women who challenged perceptions of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, first through TikTok posts and then on TV. She brings to ABC her social media followers, who number in the millions, and presumably some of the viewership from “Mormon Wives,” which has regularly topped the numbers for Hulu’s other marquee reality show — “The Kardashians.”
But Paul has also brought along negative attention with the news that she and Dakota Mortensen, the father of her third child, are being investigated by police on allegations of domestic violence. The Police Department in Draper City, Utah, said this week that the encounter in question occurred after Paul had wrapped “The Bachelorette,” but during filming for the upcoming season of “Mormon Wives,” which has since been paused.
Cinnabon dropped Paul and her fellow “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” cast members from a brand deal, saying the sponsorship “no longer aligns with our brand values,” and there have been calls for ABC to cancel or postpone Sunday’s premiere of “The Bachelorette.”
Representatives from ABC and Hulu did not respond to a request for comment. Warner Bros. Discovery, which handles casting for “The Bachelorette,” did not answer a question about whether this season is moving forward. When Paul appeared on “Good Morning America” on Wednesday morning to promote the dating show, she said she would address the legal investigation “when the time is right.”
Here is what to know about ABC’s unconventional Bachelorette.
She has had legal troubles.
The very first episode of “Mormon Wives” showed police body camera footage of Paul’s 2023 arrest after a physical altercation with Mortensen. She was originally charged with aggravated assault, child abuse and domestic violence in the presence of a child.
Paul struck a deal in which she pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated assault, a third-degree felony, and had the other charges dismissed. She submitted a plea of abeyance of 36 months, meaning a court would review the remaining charge in August 2026 and potentially lessen it to a misdemeanor if she complies with the terms of a supervised probation. A new criminal charge would violate her probation.
Paul’s selection drew the consternation of fans of “The Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” who pointed to the franchises’ past failures to properly vet contestants. “It’s almost like there was years of this behavior documented … before they asked her to be the bachelorette. This was doomed no matter what,” Katie Maloney, a host of the “Disrespectfully” podcast, commented on an Instagram post.
In 2024, it was revealed that the winner of Jenn Tran’s season, Devin Strader, had been arrested on a felony burglary charge and had a restraining order filed against him in 2017, before he was cast on the show. (He pleaded guilty to charges of criminal trespass and simple criminal damage to property of less than $500, and received one year of unsupervised probation.) As “The Golden Bachelorette” aired that summer, an online sleuth discovered that two contestants had restraining orders taken out against them.
‘The Bachelorette’ bent the rules for her.
One of the show’s most ironclad rules is that the lead and the contestants are not allowed to have phone during filming. The isolation lets them fully immerse themselves in the experience and prevents them from researching the people they are getting to know.
In an interview this fall on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, Paul said she had negotiated phone access to keep in contact with her three children and to promote Season 3 of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”
Though there have been some small exceptions made to the phone rule in the past, like allowing contestants supervised and filmed phone calls with their children or parents, no lead had ever previously had full access.
It’s unclear whether she was/is really single.
Much of Season 4 of “Mormon Wives,” which dropped on March 12, chronicles Paul’s on-again, off-again relationship with Mortensen. That season’s finale ended on a cliffhanger that Paul might be pregnant with his child.
That has been a cardinal violation of “Bachelorette” norms for many, with comments on the largest “Bachelor”-related Reddit forum arguing that it’s a waste of a season to see someone who isn’t emotionally available or really open to finding love, not only for viewers but for the contestants on the season. “Dating shows are not for you to come on to find your healing,” Charity Lawson, a former “Bachelorette” lead, posted on TikTok, “you would think that’s almost common sense at this point.”
Shivani Gonzalez is a news assistant at The Times who writes a weekly TV column and contributes to a variety of sections.
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