The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives executive producer Jeff Jenkins weighed in on whether Taylor Frankie Paul and her estranged ex Dakota Mortensen will return for season 5.
“[Taylor is] just made for this,” Jenkins, 58, told Variety in an interview published on Wednesday, May 27. “To share her life on camera, she does it like breathing air. She doesn’t edit herself. She’s really built for this type of lane. So I’m very hopeful that she’ll be back very soon, and I’m hopeful we can do all sorts of other projects with her as well.”
Filming temporarily shut down on season 5 of Mormon Wives in March when Taylor, 32, and her ex Dakota, 33, were involved in multiple domestic violence scandals. New bodycam footage emerged of a 2023 incident that led to Taylor’s arrest and subsequent agreement to plead guilty to a third-degree felony count of aggravated assault. (ABC cancelled plans to air Taylor’s season of The Bachelorette when the 2023 bodycam footage came to light.)
Taylor and Dakota were both investigated for a new domestic investigation that took place in February, though Utah officials ultimately declined to pursue charges against her.
In the middle of her multiple legal battles, Taylor temporarily lost custody of son Ever, 2, to Dakota pending a June 1 court hearing and both parties were granted restraining orders against each other for a period of three years. (Taylor also shares two older children — daughter Indy May Paul and son Ocean Paul — with her ex-husband, Tate Paul.)
Speaking to Variety, Jensen admitted that Mormon Wives faces challenges in documenting Dakota and Taylor’s stories because of the recent court orders.
“If you watched the live feed from the judge’s courtroom, both Dakota and Taylor have stay away orders now that are official, so fortunately or unfortunately, whatever your perspective, we won’t be able to shoot with them together, ever again, or at least for a very long time,” Jensen said. “But I’m very hopeful that we’ll be shooting with both of them or either of them very soon.”
The producer reiterated that Disney has given “the green light to start moving towards shooting” Mormon Wives again, while the cast are “excited to get back in there and get back at it.” However, Jenkins admitted the MomTok ladies have “strong opinions about the last two months and those opinions are every perspective you can imagine.”
“It’s going to be very interesting when we start back up any day now. How does that sort out? We’ve got to shoot together to sort it out,” he insisted. “But once that all sorts out, how is that going to impact the friendships, the relationships, and MomTok as a whole? I don’t have the answer. I’m excited to see.”
The producer added, “I don’t have a lot of detail on where each woman’s head is at. I’ve just heard through the grapevine. We all know Jessi [Draper’s] really supportive. Some of her comments were actually used in the courtroom that you saw on the live feed.”
Aside from Taylor’s drama, Mormon Wives season 5 will likely deal with Jessi’s messy divorce from ex Jordan Ngatikaura and her connection with Vanderpump Villa alum Marciano Brunette, as well as Whitney Leavitt’s impending departure from the show following her successful run in Broadway’s Chicago.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is available to stream via Hulu.
