The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives hit Hulu on Friday, and we’ll never be the same. What started as an innocent curiosity about a new show turned into an intense, nonstop binge to the end.
The new series explores the relationships of eight Mormon wives who came together to form MomTok, a very successful social media collaboration, and then almost lost it all after a shocking sex scandal.
Taylor Frankie Paul is clearly the group leader, or at least in competition to be the favorite friend, and she’s also the biggest rebel in the group.
After a “soft swinging” scandal broke out, Taylor divorced her then-husband, Tate Paul, in 2022 after developing feelings for another man.
For those scratching their heads up about “soft swinging” is, it’s when partners swap and do anything or everything but intercourse.
There is quite a bit of speculation about whose husband Taylor allegedly caught feelings for, but it’s not Dakota, who is her boyfriend on the show.
Taylor causes plenty of drama with that relationship, too, after she becomes pregnant with Dakota’s baby and resists pressure to marry him to save face and to keep with what is expected of her in this religious atmosphere.
Social media fame and the money that comes with it keeps MomTok together
Due to the group’s millions of TikTok followers, what could have easily been covered up became a very public story, leading to the women filming the Hulu original series.
The Secret Wives of Mormon Wives follows Taylor, Whitney Leavitt, Jennifer Affleck, Jessi Ngatikaura, Mikayla Mathews, Mayci Neeley, Demi Engemann, and Layla Wessel.
The eight moms came together to form MomTok, a dance-based group of social media influencers who have all managed to build platforms so successful that they are now the breadwinners of their families.
It is because of this that the group is trying so hard to stay together despite scandal, personality clashes, and never-ending drama. The fact that the women are bringing in the big bucks also challenges their religious traditions, which are heavily patriarchal.
The Mormon Church is not pleased
They are nothing like what you might expect from a modern Mormon wife, and even the Church of Latter Day Saints has issued a statement about the series that took aim at the high drama that includes a soft swinging scandal, divorce, cheating, and an unmarried pregnant divorcee, just to name a few.
The statement began, “Some portrayals are fair and accurate, but others resort to stereotypes or gross misrepresentations that are in poor taste and have real-life consequences for people of faith,’ they wrote when discussing the representation of Mormonism in the media.”
Naturally, several of the cast members spoke out after the Church’s statement came out a couple weeks before the show premiered to defend themselves and to remind viewers that this show is about them as individuals and is not about their shared religion.
But many things portrayed in The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives are serious enough to not only attract the attention of religious leaders but could also lead to consequences and possibly even ex-communication from the church.
Hopefully, that won’t hold us back from getting a Season 2, though, because the premiere season was better than any season of Real Housewives in at least the past five years and certainly is more interesting than all of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City could ever be.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is now streaming Season 1 on Hulu.